Syria / ALhasakah

“My brother and I were stopped at check point and held there for a long time because we don’t have ID cards that prove our identity,” 35-year-old Fatima M. said that security forces didn’t allow them to leave until after several people arrived and testified they knew them.

Fatima's husband couldn’t complete the papers to take family record booklet. For this reason Fatima and children don’t have an ID cards.

In Syria, thousands of Syrians suffer from the same situation.  In 1962, a census was carried out in areas where mostly Kurdish people live.  But in ALhasakah, the Syrian Kurds weren’t included in the census.

Fatima lives with her five children in a two-roomed house made of mud belonging to her husband's brother. She is afraid of being thrown from house with her children at every moment while they are already suffering from poverty. Their financial situation became worse when her husband went missing after Daesh mercenaries attacked ALhasakah five years ago.

In June 2015, Daesh mercenaries took control of several quarters of ALhasakah and the Syrian Democratic Forces liberated these quarters including villages located in eastern and western of Heseke in less than a month and half so the people returned to their homes after the remains of  explosive and mines left by mercenaries were collected.

Fatima has three Fatima couldn’t ask about her husband after his disappearance because she needs an ID card to enter a military or civilian places or prisons. She cannot prove that she was wife of her husband.

Fatima has five children, three daughters and two boys. The eldest is about 13 years old. Her oldest daughter suffers from a disability; one of her legs is shorter than the other. Her daughter feels no pain now, but according to doctors, she will have in the future.

She gave birth to her last son shortly after the disappearance of her husband; she was forced to leave her baby. She now collects rubbishes feed her children.

Fatima’s brothers and family live in Turkey now and her husband’s family’s financial condition is fine but they don’t help her, “My family told me to leave my children (in Syria) to go to Turkey,” Fatima said she worked for municipality for a month by using another woman’s ID card. She said she couldn’t keep working like that because no one gave their ID cards for a long time.

Fatima and her children don't have any aids from any organizations because they don’t have any ID cards.

Fatima, her brothers, sisters, and children have been deprived from their most basic rights. They keep living without having any rights. Her husband had tried to take a family record booklet but he had been asked money so he couldn’t take.

Even though Fatima and her children are suffering from not having ID card and poverty, she is still optimistic and she thinks everything will be better for her and children soon.

There is no statistic about the numbers of unregistered people in Syria; the number of unregistered people increase due to the civil war broke out in Syria in 2011. And the legal marriage is carried out in the presence of a Sheikh and witnesses, and this causes many people to not prove their marriages. The children have negatively affected by this in the future because they don’t have any ID cards for going to school, having a job and etc.