Suhair Al-Idlibi

Idlib - In Idlib and NE Syria, the phenomenon of depriving women of their inheritance rights has spread due to customs, traditions, culture, and patriarchy, and this causes problems among members of families.  

 Halima Al-Rifai (35) talked about her brothers depriving her of her inheritance rights and she said, “This is not fair, I have a right and I must obtain it.”

Halima Al-Rifai applied to Sharia Court in İdlib and filed a lawsuit to obtain her right. "I applied to the court because my brothers don't accept to share properties with me”, she said “I had to accept to not take my inheritance right. I had to remain silent, because my mother, my aunts, and all the women of the family gave up their inheritance rights for their brothers. But after our displacement from Khan Sheikhoun city two years ago, our financial conditions deteriorated and my husband lost his job, I decided to obtain my right.”

Ramia Sabih (28) is from Kally city in the northern countryside of Idlib, her brothers refused to share of properties inherited from her father despite her poverty and her need for money. She was afraid of losing her brothers, so she refused to claim her inheritance rights. But she doesn’t accept injustice practices against her and she asks, "Why should we as women keep silent about our rights?”

There are many religious and legal texts mentioning the right of women to inherit, but the social norm shares inheritance among male children.

Some fathers think that if they inherit their properties, lands, or house to their daughters, their daughter’s husband will take all, therefore they inherit all their properties to their male children.

A lawyer Anwar Sheikh Ali (39) says that male culture and custom are stronger than the laws in the region. Although the law guarantees a woman's inheritance rights, society ignores women.

Anwar Sheikh Ali calls on organizations to raise awareness of women to know their rights. Underlining that families shouldn't discriminate between their children regardless of gender, Anwar Sheikh Ali says the rights of women should be granted to women. In this way they can stand on their own legs, believe in themselves, and participate in every sphere of life by breaking all stereotypes.