A few weeks ago, I watched a documentary that I can’t stop thinking about. It tells the story of Syria’s stolen children and the families still searching for them years later. The investigation, led by Lighthouse Reports and broadcast by the BBC, reveals how, under Assad’s regime, children of detainees were taken from their parents and hidden in Assad’s dungeons or orphanages, the majority of which were run by the international charity SOS Children’s Villages, an organization whose mission is to protect children but it allowed its centers to become places of disappearance.
One story particularly haunts me: Reem’s. Her son, Karim, was only two years old when he disappeared with his father in 2013. For more than a decade, Reem has been searching for him – visiting orphanages, requesting records, doing everything possible to trace her child. Reem is still waiting, still searching, still denied the answers every mother deserves.
Today you can support Reem’s struggle and the families still searching for their children by watching the BBC documentary about Syria’s stolen children and sharing it with your family and friends. It’s crucial that this important story reaches as many people as possible, so that together we can push for action.
On October 23, we at The Syria Campaign joined Lighthouse Reports, Syrian Legal Development Programme and Hurras for Child Protection to screen the documentary in Damascus. The moment brought together families whose children were taken from them – some of them have been reunited with their children, and many are still looking. During the event, an elderly woman shared how her daughter and granddaughter were both detained by the Assad regime and separated into different prisons. By some fortune, she was eventually reunited with her granddaughter. Yet even after all these years, the trauma remains, and her granddaughter still panics every time a classroom door closes, terrified she’s back in prison.
It’s important that you watch and share this documentary today. By listening and amplifying the voices of these families, you’re standing in solidarity with them and helping strengthen their calls for truth and justice. Your solidarity matters now more than ever.
As families continue their search, many have discovered that some of the individuals involved in these crimes remain in positions of power. This is why we are calling on the interim authorities in Syria to act urgently to meet with families, investigate these crimes, identify the missing children, and bring them home. At the same time, all those responsible, including SOS Children’s Villages, must be held accountable.
No child in Syria should ever again be denied their right to a name, an identity, or a family.
In solidarity,
Ranim Ahmed
Communications Director at The Syria Campaign
P.S. Syria’s stolen children is an investigation coordinated by Lighthouse Reports in partnership with Syrian investigative journalists from Women Who Won the War and SIRAJ, and international journalists from BBC Eye, The Observer, Der Spiegel, and Trouw, and also published by Sowt and Al-Jumhuriya.
