Obstetric Violence Persists for Syrian Women Displaced Across Borders

Syrian women in displacement — in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan — are reporting patterns of obstetric violence that include denial of anaesthesia, non-consensual episiotomies, verbal humiliation, and coerced caesarean sections. The testimonies, gathered across multiple host contexts, point to a combination of factors: overstretched public health systems where refugee patients are deprioritised, discriminatory attitudes toward Syrian women specifically, and the near-total absence of legal frameworks in host countries that define and criminalise obstetric violence as a rights violation.

The structural dynamic is compounded displacement: women who already lack legal status, language access, and social networks are least able to complain, refuse treatment, or access alternative care. The asymmetry of power in a delivery room is extreme under normal conditions; for undocumented women dependent on state or NGO facilities, it is total. This is not a cultural misunderstanding — it is a predictable outcome when health systems are built to manage patient throughput without accountability mechanisms for care quality or consent.

The question to watch is whether the UN's current review of the Istanbul Convention's application in refugee contexts produces binding guidance on obstetric rights, or whether this remains trapped in the gap between reproductive health frameworks and refugee protection law — two bodies of international law that rarely speak to each other.