Women’s Blog

The Power of a Costly Document

Prison is a humiliating place. It cuts a person’s life short. Every single night, I dreamed that my son would be released. Ahmad was gone for a year and eight […]

Crawling Through Trenches

When Eastern Ghouta was liberated, we were overjoyed, yet not a day went by without us worrying. The regime retaliated for the loss of territory in various ways – we […]

Detained and Abused for Delivering Aid

Carrying money through the Mleha checkpoint was almost impossible, but I had 1,000 US dollars in aid money that I needed to deliver to the head of the Humanitarian Aid […]

A Key to No House

Samah Imam’s family stood riveted in front of the television, watching a news report about Kurdish forces retaking territory from Islamic State militants in northeast Syria. A week after launching […]

A Sick Joke on April Fool’s Day

It was seven in the morning on April 1, 2015 – time to get up for work. I was still at my job in a Syrian state bank in Latakia, […]

Humiliated for a Bag of Bread

Until Syrian government forces placed Ghouta under siege towards the end of 2013, it was still possible to travel there by bus from Damascus. It was a journey of just […]

“Don’t Cry, I’m Alive”

My name is Hiba and I’m 23 years old. My family and I were among the last to leave Douma before the Free Syrian Army (FSA) captured the town from […]

The Peril of Taking Taxis in Raqqa

It was an ordinary day in mid-February 2015. Hayat pulled on her niqab (face veil) and stood in front of her mirror, making sure she was ready to leave the […]

A Decade of Insults

When I first started primary school, I was taken aback by the slogans I found written on the walls. This graffiti had nothing to do with education, or even the […]