The Syrian conflict has caused widespread destruction with severe damage to housing, infrastructure, and land governance systems. Property rights have been severely impacted, with widespread Housing, Land, and Property (HLP) violations including forced evictions and other complications due to a breakdown in institutional processes and services, which can lead to complex ownership disputes.
Many displaced individuals lack proper documentation to assert their HLP rights, especially women who face significant legal and societal barriers because of their gender. Customary norms often prevent women from securing property rights, exposing them to violence and exploitation within their families. The conflict has entrenched these discriminatory practices, making it challenging for women to protect and claim their rights.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), launched a cross-border HLP in Syria project in December 2020, focusing on safeguarding the property rights and legal identity of Syrian refugees across Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Unlike other initiatives that address HLP needs in countries of displacement, this project uniquely emphasizes securing rights within Syria, providing information and legal assistance for obtaining replacement documents, handling inheritance issues.
The project has offered consistent legal advice and training, particularly aimed at empowering women to understand and assert their HLP rights.
This report is intended to review and identify the challenges, good practices and lessons learned over the past four years, assess how to build on this experience, and help determine whether and how program activities should be modified moving forward to better support refugees, given the reality that return may be unlikely for an unknown period of time.
