By: Musab al-Shehab

Urfa, Turkey, Jan, 2016, (Al-Arabi al-Jadid) –When he taught at the informal Ghiytah Mater school, funded by volunteers in the Turkish city of Urfa, his monthly salary did not exceed $30. However, Osama’s salary increased six fold to $225 at Al-Ikha School., though only for a while.

“I was caught between two fires: My livelihood on the one hand and my students who became attached to me on the other hand,” Osama said.

His ordeal began when he left the financially-unstable Ghiyath Matar (elementary/secondary) school, founded by Syrian volunteers on the 1st of October, 2013.

“They used to pay us 200 Turkish liras ($90) for three months while I paid 550 liras ($250) a month for rent, excluding other expenses,” said the teacher who holds a degree in physics. “This sum is next to zero,” added the father of three.

Al-Ihsan (now Al-Ikha) school took in Osama on 20/3/2014. There, he found a better opportunity to work with a Kuwaiti donor financing the school, paying 500 liras ($225) as a minimum basic salary for every teacher. However, five months later, the Kuwaiti donor stopped paying without giving his reasons, and Osama along with 24 other teachers lost their pay.

Osama is one of many teachers facing such conditions in volunteer, donor-funded schools.

The author of this investigation organized a survey in Urfa, home to about 500,000 Syrian refugees, covering 67 Syrian teachers in three volunteer schools (Bila Hudud, Al-Bahaa, and Obeida AL-Hamoud). The schools have nearly 1,500 students out of 100,000 school-aged Syrians in Urfa and its countryside, who had fled the war in their country.

Turkey hosts half a million school-age Syrians, who account for a quarter of the total number of Syrian refugees in Turkey, home to 250 Syrian schools according to estimates by the Turkish government. Only one of five of these children is enrolled at school (Figure-2 quotes) The survey shows that 46 percent of teachers would leave their profession if they can get other work at a fixed salary, which is not possible to have in these schools. Around 20,000 teachers work in Syrian territories outside the control of the regime, while the number of Syrian teachers in Turkey stands at around 5,000.

Over ten months of investigation covering eight schools in Urfa, the author concluded that all these schools (Sirine 1, Sirine 2, Bila Hudud, Al-Bahaa, Al-Ikhaa, Obeida al-Hamoud, Al-Fajr, and Ghiyath Matar), which have more than 3500 students and 200 teachers combined, do not pay fixed salaries but small “bonuses” that vary from school to school. The wages come either from donors, relief groups, religious groups or international organizations.

In truth, there are no clear regulations for establishing volunteer schools in Turkey, while the Ministry of Education of the Syrian regime observes 67 different articles and 150 provisions as conditions to license private schools and nurseries in Syria.

Five out of the eight schools in Urfa are not subject to any educational law. They have no permits to operate and do not report to any official authority, be it Turkish or Syrian. The rest (Sirine 1, Sirine 2, and Bila Hudud) abide by Turkey’s Education Law.

The elementary certificate examinations are nonstandard. Each school has its own format, unlike the situation in Syrian areas controlled by the regime. The Turkish Ministry of Education seems indifferent, while donors have a “seasonal” approach to support, and the Ministry of Education of the Syrian interim government is complacent.

Students who cannot read or do arithmetic

At Al-Bahaa School, which collects nominal fees of 50 liras ($22) per month from every student, the journalist tested 15 students, in third grade, to assess their educational attainment in the absence of job stability for the teachers. Only one student passed the aptitude test.

At Al-Bahaa volunteer school in Urfa, on the 3rd of October, 2015, he tested at random 15 third grade students. He used a written aptitude test prepared by an education expert with ten years of experience in teaching at primary schools in Aleppo. Mohammad Saleh, who holds a degree in education, believes the test is simple and would be easy to a student studying the official curriculum of the Syrian interim government.

After the 30 minute test, the results were as follows:

9 out of 15 students failed to answer correctly 6/3. One student of the remaining six answered correctly and passed the test

In these eight schools, the curriculum taught is the amended Syrian curriculum issued by the Ministry of Education in the Syrian interim government. It is distributed free of charge. The curriculum was developed in 2013 to remove any reference to the regime and its followers, said Dr. Abdul-Rahman Kawara, executive director of the Syrian Education Commission in an interview on Al-Aan TV. Although the curricula were unified, orientations change from one school to another. Schools funded by Turkish religious endowments promote more conservative climates, in terms of separating the sexes and implicitly imposing the headscarf or certain dress codes by refusing to enroll girls who are bareheaded without stating a reason. Other schools seek to emphasize a certain identity and separate supporters and opponents of the Syrian regime, refusing to enroll loyalists.

The journalist established that eight schools are financially unstable, having been established by Syrian volunteers without proper administration. Two schools — (Ghiyath Matar and Al-Ikha) — are funded by Syrian donors and other private sources. The other two (Obeida al-Hamoud and Al-Bahaa) collect nominal fees from the students (50 liras/$22) paid for one time only at the first school. As for the second school, fees are collected monthly.

The four stable ones: Two are funded by UNICEF, one is funded by Turkish endowments and the fourth is funded by the Syrian Al-Ataa Relief and Development Organizations, which receives support from Arab organizations. The first three schools are administratively under the supervision of the Turkish Ministry of Education.

The role of the interim government

Around 73% of teachers surveyed in our poll held the interim Syrian government, based in Gaziantep, Turkey, responsible for not paying their salaries and for neglecting their rights.

The term “volunteer” (without formal rights) has been associated with Syrian teachers in Urfa-based so-called “volunteer schools”. These are divided into two types: Formal schools that answer administratively to the Turkish Ministry of Education and funded by Turkish endowments and UNICEF. And informal schools, which have no permits or administrative supervision and are established by Syrian volunteers with support from donors and humanitarian groups. Some are self-funded through nominal fees collected from the citizens.

Syrian schools without supervision

During the field research, the journalist found out that the Syrian schools in Urfa had no links to the Ministry of Education in the Syrian interim government. This is true for all schools in Turkey, according to Azzam Khanji, director of the Ministry of Education in the interim government.

Conditional support and discrimination

Although monthly bonuses are paid, Anas Awf, deputy director of the Bila Hudud school (funded by Turkish endowments and answering to Turkey’s Education Ministry), said they are not enough compared to what is paid to Turkish teachers who are paid up to 10 percent more than their Syrian counterparts and have official work contracts.

The Turkish endowments, which are not lacking in financial resources according to Awf, funds the Bila Hudud school established by Syrian volunteers in April 2014. It was then expanded in February 2015 and now comprises four schools covering all stages of school education, according to Awf.

The endowments pay 8.5 liras ($3.5) per hour to teachers as bonus. Syrian teachers thus earn 650-800 liras ($270-330) for 80 to 95 hours per month.

This equation does not apply to teachers of Turkish Language who are Turks. They earn 9.5 liras ($4) per hour and get many times more the working hours with a minimum of 160 hours per month. They also benefit from health insurance and end of service compensation, in addition to pension salaries, and have official work contracts.

On the other hand, Syrian teachers sign a ceremonial contract of “moral commitment” with the Ministry of Education in Turkey. The contract states that the work is on a volunteer basis, with no obligations on the first party: no health insurance or salary from the ministry. Only bonuses are granted, regardless of the source.

Teachers are not allowed to object or claim compensation if they are fired. This happened to 25 teachers who were sacked from Bila Hudud on September 2nd, 2015 without the reasons being stated. At the end of the first semester, they were told to join the second semester — but that they had to wait until they are called. They were never called, and new teachers replaced them, according to an administrator at the school who asked not to be named.

Moreover, the Ministry of Education imposed the appointment of a Turkish coordinator in the Bila Hudud schools. He received 3,000 liras a month ($1250) while a Syrian deputy received 850 liras ($350) from Turkish endowments.

This reporter conducted a comparison between three Syrian schools, Bila Hudud, Al-Bahaa, Obeida al-Hamoud; and the Iraqi Nineveh School which is subordinate to the Iraqi Ministry of Education. The Iraqi school was opened on 1/11/2014 in the city of Urfa, attracting 17 specialized Syrian teachers, all degree-holders. These teachers include Osama, whose conditions improved after he started earning 1400 Turkish liras ($635) monthly.

The comparison shows that the three “volunteer” schools only pay their teachers bonuses: one—$330 monthly as a maximum; the second $160 per month; while the third paid $600 for the entire scholastic year.

In the Bila Hudud school, there are 620 students. Each bench seats 3 to 4 students, while the number of total students in Al-Bahaa and Obeida al-Hamoud is 850. Sometimes, a single bench could have 8 students at Obeida AL-Hamoud school.

On the other hand, every student has his own desk in the private school, which has only 75 students. This school hires specialized teachers who are paid a minimum of  $400 per month.

All volunteer schools have teachers who never worked in teaching before or who teach outside their fields (between 7 and 39 percent of teachers in the three schools).

Timid assistance

In February 2014, the Ministry of Education in the Syrian interim government printed 2 million books free of charge as a step forward for all academic levels, to cover the needs of 200,000 students – 80% for schools in liberated areas and 20% for Syrian schools in neighboring countries, according to Dr. Abdul-Rahman AL-Haj, adviser to the Interim Minister for Educational Affairs.

The interim government also announced on its official page on March 28th, 2014, that $1.5 million has been disbursed to cover six months’ worth of salaries to teachers working in Syrian provinces.

طHowever, the government has only spent $1 million out of the declared sum over one month, Azzam Khanji, director of the Education Ministry (interim), said in an interview.

“When the decision was issued, I noted to the ministry that the sum is not enough to cover six months and 20,000 teachers inside Syria.Each teacher would get 10,000 Syrian pounds ($50), which means they need $6 million in six months. Thus, a single payment was handed out in some provinces and in others two payments of 5000 Syrian pounds ($25)”.

He justified the reduction of the sum by saying: “Some areas have no schools left in them as a result of the battles raging there.” Nevertheless, he admitted to failing to properly announce the reduction, saying it was an unintended mistake. Khanji added: “Some ask what happened to the rest of the money? We say it went to the summer offset project” in reference to free lessons in all subjects lasting 2-and-a-half months, starting in July 2014. The project targeted students who missed academic years and new refugees.

Nour AL-Din Mahamid, the official who follows up educational departments in Syria, said 41,700 students benefit from the project in Turkey, Lebanon, and the Syrian interior.

At the same time, approval came to support troubled schools in Turkey and  in other countries neighboring Syria with $100,000 monthly over a period of four months. The interim cabinet in May and June 2014 issued a decision allocating $200,000 (lump sum to all schools) to further support troubled schools in Turkey.

Although most schools in Urfa are considered financially-troubled, the Ghiyath Matar school was the only one to receive funding from this allocation, getting 7600 liras ($3450) to cover rent for four months, onApril 22nd, 2014.

No supervision

Kinda al-Rawi, a volunteer, is the director of Ghiyath Matar school. She was suspended in early 2015 from her post as representative of the Ministry of Education in Urfa, for reasons unknown to her.

Kinda said: “Education without government support may continue, but haphazardly.” She added that “there is a lack of supervision over these schools. Teachers can close the door to students and impart on them his/her ideas, and when bonuses are not available only teachers with other sources of income step forward, which means we have to overlook credentials.”

Kinda stressed that volunteer schools have lost many skilled teachers because of the lack of stable wages. This includes her school, which was left by six specialized teachers in the first 5 months after the school was launched. Someone told her: “I would rather carry stones than continue to teach.”

Strike

On December 12th, 2014, two schools went on strike in the city of Urfa (Al-Ikha and Obeida al-Hamoud) in protest at “the failure of the interim government toward troubled schools and teachers who do not receive wages”. Um Tahsin at Obeida al-Hamoud, held a banner, along with her students outside the school, demanding wages to be paid. Although Obeida al-Hamoud school collects fees from its 420 students, this is not enough to cover event rent, according to its director Ziad Mahidi. Mahidi. He said the fees are nominal, not exceeding 50 liras, and are paid once a year. “A large percentage of the students cannot afford the fees, and they are exempted.”

Neglect and empty promises

On March 19th, 2014, Iyad AL-Qudsi, deputy interim prime minister said in a statement published on the interim government’s website, that “the government has a plan to support all schools in Turkey, starting with those that are facing problems in meeting costs and not salaries of their teachers.”

However, Ahmad al-Qassem, director of the interim government’s office in Urfa, had a different opinion. “Those schools are private sector and are not actually subordinate to the interim government, but to donors. Hence, they are their responsibility.”

Qassem believes all sides are responsible for the failure, and blamed the former minister of education Muhyiddin Bananeh for most of the administrative failure.

This reporter found out that the Education Office does not have any allocations or a budget. The office of the interim government in Urfa has been corresponding with the ministry of education since December 2014 to resolve outstanding problems but to no avail.

On March 17th, 2015, the head of the Syrian interim government decided to close his government’s offices in Turkish cities, without giving reasons. A source in the Syrian National Coalition who asked not to be named said the main reason behind the closure of the offices in Istanbul, Urfa, Mardin, and Hatay is the inability of the interim government to pay the salaries of staff and other costs amounting to $72,000 a month.

Shortage in funding

On the morning of March 25, 2015, this reporter went to the Turkish city of Gaziantep, to meet with the Minister of Education Imad Barq. After waiting for more than half an hour the next day in a small room, the request for a meeting was denied “for reasons specific to the minister”, according to the secretary. The reporter’s insistence on the importance of getting official answers to clarify matters was ignored.

On the morning of March 27, the attempt was repeated with no result. On the advice of the secretary, the author headed to the office of the Education Department Azzam Khanji in the same building.

“Unfortunately, the Director of Education traveled to Istanbul, and will come back after a few days,” was the answer of his office manager. On March 31, the journalist met with Azzam Khanji.

We asked him why wages are not allocated to teachers in Turkey, similar to the teachers in the Syrian interior who were allocated $1.5 million over six months. He replied: “The total sum given to the interim government since its inception in 2013 was 50 million euros. The Ministry of Education was allocated only 8 million Euros. Even if the entire budget of the government is diverted to the Education Ministry, it won’t be enough.”

Khanji added that $90 million are needed to cover the educational needs of Syrian students in the liberated areas in Syria and in neighboring countries, including books and monthly grants to teachers.

Moral and ethical role

Khanji said the schools are under direct Turkish supervision (the Ministry of National Education) while the role of the Syrian interim Education Ministry was “moral and ethical”.

The Syrian official held the UN and other international organizations responsible for neglecting education. “We reached out to the known international organizations. They all say nice things about cooperation, but in the end, they want to get the information and deal directly with schools.”

Paragraph (2) Article (28) in the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child in paragraph states: “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that school discipline is administered in a manner consistent with the child’s human dignity and in conformity with the present Convention.”

Up in the air

In October 2014, the Ministry of Education in Turkey began including Syrian schools under its administrative responsibility. The ministry overlooked the financial aspects, which means schools remain in the same position, looking for sponsors to cover their expenses and the wages of their teachers before they go the same way Osama went.

Osama struck luck recently after he almost lost hope. The Iraqi Nineveh school became his lifeline. In March 2015, the Obeida al-Hamoud school was closed down after it was no longer able to meet its expenses.

This investigation was completed with the support of  Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) – www.arij.net – and coached by Saad Hatter. Before the completion of this investigation, Musab al-Shehab joined the convoys of Syrians boarding death boats to seek asylum in Europe.

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By Nisreen Aladdin and Mukhtar al-Ibrahim

Damascus, Syria, (Al-Hayat) – Damascus: Reported

This investigation began during a bus ride from Damascus to it’s suburbs on Nov. 12, 2015. The reporter accidentally stumbled on the problem of unregistered children in Syria. Born during the ongoing war, these children were separated from their fathers who were kidnapped, killed or forced entirely to leave the country. As a result, they have been unavailable and incapable of registering their children as their own.
Travelling on a small white bus that was transporting civilians across military checkpoints, the vehicle was stopped by a government soldier for inspection. Pacing up and down the aisles, he requested and received identification papers. On the bus was a young woman looking nervously at the soldier, as she cradled a young baby in her arms. She stared at him, as if waiting for him to ask who the child belonged to.
But the child was not noticed. The soldier quickly left the bus and waved it on. As the bus moved on, the baby woke up and began crying, despite the mother’s attempts to calm it.
“What is her name?”
“She doesn’t have one registered yet,” the mother responded “And every so often I change my mind!”
This is the first time that the mother – called Rania – visited Damascus in five years, even though she lived only fourteen kilometres south of the capital. She had to travel to Damascus to try and register her child in the judicial courts. Rania married at the age of fifteen – a year and a half ago at time of meeting – to a man called Khalil Jumah who was displaced from another region in Syria. A local sheik married them in a ceremony with two witnesses present, as is customary outside the urbanized areas of Syria.
However , they did not receive the certification needed to register with the civil authorities.
Tragedy struck soon afterwards when their town was bombed in mid-2014. Rania was forced to flee to another town..
“Two months after that, my husband was killed. And later, my daughter was born without a marriage certificate.”
A week after our first meeting, Rania found herself confronting legal complications that would require a lawyer. This was because the Civil Registry had refused to register her daughter because the marriage contract was not available..
Her lawyer requested that she provide two witnesses from her hometown or paperwork to authenticate the marriage. This was very difficult because both witnesses had either fled the country or died in the war, while Rania only knew that her husband’s hometown is under the control of rebels.. This added an extra wrinkle, as it was unlikely government officials would recognize an official’s ruling from such an area.
Her lawyer requested 100,000 Syrian pounds (nearly $ 400) to mount the lawsuit on her behalf, but Rania could not afford the cost, especially not after the death of her husband and both her parents as well as the loss of all her property.
The Syrian civil code stipulates in Legislative Decree No. 26 of 2007, Chapter IV Article 28, paragraph c: (in case of children born to unregistered marriages, they cannot be registered until the marriage itself is registered).

For up to a full year, Rania was still at the judicial courts trying to register her daughter, until her debts caught up to her. Now she survives on the charity and kindness of others.
Rana’s case is one of many such stories emerging from the war in Syria, six years after the initial conflict began. This investigation was able to prove 29 different cases like Rania’s, after interviewing families in centres for displaced families in both Damascus and its countryside and in rural villages of the Quneitra Governate.
All cases investigated were of mothers suffering difficulties in registering the births of their children, for reasons related to Syria’s personal status laws, which requires the meeting of many conditions, an impossible mission in times of war, displacement and migration.
Among the conditions are the official registration of marriages that are needed to have one’s children recognized, that there is a documented marriage certificate for the husband with all his personal information, including date of birth, national number, parentage, etc… as expected of the wife, along with the wife’s guardian and the two adult male witnesses. Permission for marriage for the husband must also be granted from the military recruitment board, due to Syria’s national conscription laws. In addition, the address of the official certifying the marriage must be provided, along with the details for both the pre-marital dowry and the post-divorce support payments and the day of the wedding itself.
The situation is complicated in areas that fall outside the official authority, where identification issued by the opposition and the courts and local councils do not get any international recognition, let alone that of the Syrian government in Damascus.
This is what leads to the accumulation of cases brought before the courts, for mothers like Rania trying to prove their children’s parentage in the absence of their husbands. According to the first Sharia judge in Damascus, who documents the personal status lawsuits records, the marriage and paternity claims rose more than tenfold in Syria, when comparing from the two years of pre-war to 2015.
This was further proven in interviews with around sixty family rights lawyers working in Damascus and around Quneitra, who collectively said that paternity claims have grown to be 80% of all their filed cases in the past five years, compared to less than 9% before the war.
Exacerbating the situation is the harsh approach by the Ministry of Justice towards marriage and paternity claims and paperwork expectations. According to judge Mahmoud Al-Maarawi, many women are also unable to afford the legal costs and fees which begin at $ 100.
Yousif Ayed Amaara, the president for the UN’s Family Reconciliation Office, is afraid for the murky future that awaits many of Syria’s young children, who he described as “victims of both the laws and the war”. He went on to say that these cases are constantly increasing, adding that “From 2007 to 2009 we had one such case, but now we are facing tens of new instances each month”.
I Want My Rights
A report issued by the Syrian Center for Policy Research entitled “Facing Fragmentation” states that Syrian families are being dispersed at a dangerous rate, with six million Syrians displaced within Syria itself and another four million having fled outside the country.
The 25-year-old Rola – better known as Um Salah – is one of the millions who have been displaced many times over in the country. She lives in a shelter for refugees in Latakia, where she arrived six months ago with her two children without any identification papers. Her husband disappeared three years ago after leaving home to go buy bread.
Um Salah did not have the family papers, and has been unable to enter her son at school. She has also been unable to receive aid, because her children are not registered in official records. However, children born of adultery were able to register, a fact that still resonates with her after her lawyer informed her.

“I am not a prostitute, and I will not be and I will never be. But am I not harming my children? I brought them into this life and I have not provided them with their basic rights”.
Her father married her to a man who came to their village in 2011. She gave birth to their firstborn child Salah, without registering their marriage because of the volatility of the situation at the time. After less than a year of their marriage, they began a series of displacements because of the escalation of violence. She then gave birth to her second son Mohammad in 2012, and then lost her husband in 2013.
Rola’s husband is one of 65,000 people who have disappeared between March 2011 and August 2015, according to a report issued by Amnesty International. Meanwhile, the number of abductees in Syria have reached 20,000 between 2011 and the publication of this investigation according to Minister of State for the Syrian National Reconciliation Ali Haidar.
Rola stayed in the area close to the place of her husband’s disappearance, hoping he would come back and find her with their children. She was left with nothing but her wedding ring after she was forced to sell her jewelry to spend on her family before going on to the charity of others. She moved to Aleppo in 2014 and then to Latakia in 2015 in search of safety, after her son Salah was injured in his foot.
It came as a shock to her when she was asked for her children’s identification papers, and she forced to say they had been lost. She was subsequently given a room to share with another family, and upon requesting a separate room for her children she was asked to provide proof the children were hers or be at the risk dismissal from the shelter.
“I do not have any papers to prove my marriage and my children. According to government records I am still single.”
In surveying sixty lawyers in and around Damascus and Quneitra regarding the rise in parental suits during the war, answers varied between 80%, 100% and 700%. The survey also showed that by and large the largest obstacle was the absence of the husband.

Gone and never returned
Dunia listens carefully to every word her lawyer says.
The road to proving her marriage began again after the first attempt – a three month ordeal which culminated her leaving her previous lawyer as he attempted to take advantage of her circumstances and propositioned her.
Dunia married at the age of nineteen to a young man from the north of Syria who had come to work in Damascus and knows her husband’s surname, and his hometown. He had left her on Sept. 7, 2012 to go to work in Saqba, kissing her goodbye at five months pregnant. Three years have passed since he left, and since then, Dunia has rejected a proposal from a neighbor.
When she attempted to register her two year old daughter, she was surprised to learn that she needed to appoint a lawyer to overseer the procedure. Her landlord offered to pay her legal fees and after five sessions with the lawyer in his office, he asked for her to come without her landlord. When she arrived, she was propositioned and told that he would continue the legal suit for free and give her the money her landlord paid in exchange for a sexual relationship.
“I hit him with an ashtray and then I ran away and cried, all the while he was shouting at me, saying that he would send me to jail.”

Justice Adds Insult To Injury
Mahmoud Al-Maarawi claims that the Syrian crisis has imposed an incredible strain on the country’s judiciary, and that it has become essential to establish a competent judicial commission to maintain the rights of unregistered children and wives.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing a tightening of regulations from the Ministry of Justice, which is requesting a birth certificate from exclusively government hospitals, even though many women still deliver their babies with midwives or doctors in private clinics or even in their own homes. At the same time there are simply not enough judges with the courage to make rulings on these cases as the Ministry hands out more instructions”.
The Loss of Identification
It does not escape an observer that violence in Syria effected government buildings after 2011, where documents, files and records of births, bonds, divorces and marriages are believed lost. Afterwards, regional militias and opposition groups created their own records and civil registries as part of normalizing control over their territories.
A survey conducted by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Syria in 2015 found that a lack or loss of personal documents, constituted a major challenge. According to the report, the personal status law in its current form is unable to help women to certify their marriages and their children, according to 81% of the respondents.
According to lawyers we met as they worked with their clients, the best-case paternity suits that take between three and five months are those when women presented the consent of their husbands or the husbands were able to appear before the courts with documentation to prove their paternity. Other “best case scenarios” are when the women have paperwork certifying the marriage and witnesses, as well as the possibility of communicating with either the husband or the witnesses or where the judge is convinced in the validity of the marriage, regardless of certification or proof.
If none of these instances are the case, the women are likely to lose cases or continue on for two years before losing, ultimately ending in a dismissal of the case and the lack of registration of children in most cases.
The Bosnian and Tunisian Experiences As a Solution?

A 1998 law in Tunis related to children with unknown parentage gave Tunisian mothers the possibility to identify their children as their own, without a father present. This would be predicated on proving the children were their own (through shared DNA, witnesses, etc…) but would provide the children born out of wedlock all the legal rights available to those born in a recognized marriage.
But this cannot be applied directly in Syria due to the personal status law in the country, which is derived from Islamic Sharia, and is incompatible with Tunisian laws.
Meanwhile in Bosnia, the country suffered a long war in the 90’s. Families were dispersed and many were raped. This caused many parentage problems that culminated in the adoption of an old Yugoslav law which did not put concern on whether the children were legitimate or not. This allowed single mothers to register their children even if the father is unknown and receive full rights. This was a solution to a problem women and children suffered during the Bosnian war along with its systematic rape and forced pregnancy without a father.
A Typical Marriage Contract
Activists and lawyers are calling for a basic, pre-approved written marriage contract that would only need the particulars of each marriage agreement filled in. This would be accepted without fault by the judges, and would contain the evidence supporting the couple and the witnesses present, notarize the wife’s signature as consent, provide fingerprints of her husband and outline what guarantees are available to the women in case of their husband’s death, disappearance or migration. This would be temporary until the government takes control over the entirety of the country and the Sharia courts would be reinstated nationally.
The lawyers who were consulted in this investigation regarding the personal status law said that it did not help Syrian women to prove the validity of their marriages, especially not when their husbands had disappeared or if they had lost their marital documents.
They suggested to found a civil records commission specializing in dealing with children born during the war with records of their mothers until the identification of their fathers takes place when the war ends. This is to preserve the rights of the children, so as not to be constrained or considered stateless and to take the same treatment as with abandoned children. This would be in the hope of reaching a solution for those unrecognized, especially the cases of these mothers who are stuck between divorce or widowhood as well as their fatherless children.

This investigation was completed with the support of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) – www.arij.net and coached by Hamoud Almahmoud. Nicolas Awwad translated the investigation into English.

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