In 2013, regime forces in Syria broke into Dr. Rania al-Abbasi’s home, and arrested her and her six children in the capital Damascus, taking them to an unknown location. Her family’s attempts to obtain any information about her fate or that of her children, who ranged in age from one to 14 at the time of her arrest, have been unsuccessful. Despite Amnesty International taking up their case and sending direct messages to the Syrian regime to release the children, there was no official response, and no one was able to learn what had happened to them. At the time, this detention was a painful milestone in the history of ongoing violations, especially those related to the detention of children for political reasons. Since the announcement of the fall of the ruling regime in Syria, there have been reports that some orphanages, especially SOS Children’s Villages in Syria, may have been involved in the disappearance of the children. The brother of the kidnapped doctor, Hassan al-Abbasi, appeared in a video in which he spoke about contacts he made with the SOS Children’s Villages in Damascus to verify this matter after reports that the doctor’s children were there under pseudonyms.
SOS Children’s Villages Are Regulated
SOS Children’s Villages, headquartered in Austria, is an international non-governmental organization, but it is subject to the regulations of the countries in which it is located. Therefore, as in all countries, they are subject to the influence of the local regime. In Syria, the organization’s presence is governed by contracts and conditions that allow the regime to intervene directly in appointing village board members and key positions, especially since employees’ salaries are much higher than local salaries. Therefore, the villages had a close relationship with the regime, especially with the emergence of Asma al-Assad’s image as a first lady who cared about children’s affairs. Asma al-Assad singled out the villages for special attention after the organization suffered major setbacks at the end of the 1990s. She was keen to visit the villages on several occasions to polish her image as a caretaker of children, most recently on Mother’s Day in 2024.
The real beginnings of this close relationship began to emerge between 2004 and 2005. In addition to monopolizing key positions in the villages, the regime had the final say in appointing the village director, who was close to the regime over the years.
In 2019, some opposition press reports highlighted that children were beaten and psychologically abused by the “mothers” and “aunts” responsible for their care in the SOS Children’s Village in Qudsia, and documented cases of the administration covering up the abusers and reassigning them to their positions after short periods.
An important question must be asked: Can a local organization with an international dimension be involved in the disappearance of children or carry out the withholding of their freedom by order of the local authorities?
The Dilemma of SOS Children’s Villages International
On a global level, SOS Children’s Villages has been rocked by widespread reports of child abuse, sexual assault, and rampant financial corruption. This forced the international organization to form the Independent Commission in 2021 to investigate protection and compliance failures, including child abuse, corruption, and misuse of resources. SOS Children’s villages in the Arab world, especially in Lebanon and Syria, have not been far from these abuses, as many reports have emerged shedding light on basic violations against children in these villages. A key part of these violations was documented in the report of the Independent Commission, where a specialized team visited Lebanon and conducted in-depth investigations that confirmed the systematic abuse of children.
The documentation prompted SOS Children’s Villages International to make a public apology for past failures and encouraged anyone with information about abuse or misconduct to come forward. It launched a 24-point action plan to improve child protection and address past failures. However, the organization failed to restore justice to victims, especially to those who were abused as well as the village workers who tried to unveil these abuses. Despite the organization’s intention to rectify its situation, it still faces fundamental challenges in implementing deep reforms at the international and local levels.
Vague Clarification by the SOS Children’s Villages
In a statement issued on December 16, 2024, the international organization acknowledged concerns regarding children who were referred to SOS Syria “by the former government during the civil war.” It emphasized that these children, who were separated from their families during the conflict, were placed in the custody of the villages by the authorities without providing documents proving their origins. According to the statement, these forced referrals to the villages continued until 2019, when it asked the authorities to stop sending these so-called “security cases.” However, the villages have not clarified the fate of these children and how their records are kept.
The administration also stated that it worked extensively to help the al-Abbasi family, but none of Rania al-Abbasi’s children have reached the Children’s Villages branches in Damascus and beyond.
An Independent Investigative Body
In light of the brutal practices we are witnessing against the detainees of the Assad regime in Syria, there are many questions about the ability of associations and organizations such as SOS Children’s Villages to resist what ruling regimes impose. The SOS Children’s Villages in Syria may have been forced to follow the regime’s orders to accept children without records or documents, but this is not sufficient justification to prevent the organization from opening individual files for each child and documenting the minimum data on numbers, ages, and photos of the children when they arrived at the villages. These are routine procedures that we used to do as part of my previous work as director of the children’s villages in Lebanon. What has prevented SOS Children’s Villages in Syria from conducting local documentation for reunification when the opportunity arises? Are the villages complicit with the regime by providing a prison for boys and girls? If regime requirements govern the local villages, what has the international organization done in this regard over the past years?
What is important now is to know what the actual plan of the children’s villages is to uncover the fate of the forcibly disappeared children in their facilities and how they will go about reuniting them with their families. Such a case requires an independent specialized investigation before those involved rush to hide the evidence.
