Societal Attitudes toward Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Syria

As part of its efforts to ethically and comprehensively document all violations of the conflict, including SGBV, SJAC commissioned research from the Syria Research and Evaluation Organization (SREO) to assess Syrians’ attitudes towards survivors and perpetrators of SGBV. This report explains the key findings based on interviews with 60 Syrians living as urban refugees in southern Turkey.   One finding in particular was surprising — on the individual level respondents unanimously sympathized with survivors and wanted to support them. At the same time, the vast majority of respondents said that their respective communities would not be supportive and would instead shame and ostracize survivors. This and other findings illuminate ways forward in how to best address and combat SGBV during and after the Syrian conflict.