Syrian Protection Claims: Why Individual Risk Still Matters After UK Policy Shift (28 May 2026)

The UK Government’s decision to pause Syrian asylum claims following the collapse of the Assad regime created months of uncertainty for thousands of vulnerable applicants. When decision-making resumed in mid-2025 with updated Home Office country guidance, many feared the shift in tone around conditions in Syria would make protection harder to obtain. However, a recent successful case involving two young Syrian women demonstrates that individual risk factors including honour-based violence, domestic abuse, family hostility and persecution linked to sexual orientation remain central to the asylum process and can still outweigh broader political narratives about “improving” conditions in Syria.

 

In late 2024, following political upheaval in Syria and the collapse of the Assad regime, the UK Government implemented a formal pause on substantive asylum and settlement decisions for Syrian nationals. This pause, confirmed in a Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament on 11 December 2024, applied to both initial asylum claims and settlement applications, including those under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme. The Government stated that the measure was necessary because “no stable, objective information [was] available to make robust assessments of risk on return to Syria.” While new claims continued to be registered, no substantive decisions were made until updated country information became available. We are now seeing decisions being made. While many remain anxious, we look at a recent case that succeeded. 

 

This case concerns two young Syrian women who fled their country due to the armed conflict and the compounded risks arising from their personal circumstances. Both were raised in conservative and highly controlling households where strict gender roles were enforced, and personal autonomy was severely restricted. From an early age, each experienced limitations on their freedom of movement, social interactions, and decision-making. Their childhood was further shaped by the trauma of war, displacement and exposure to domestic abuse.

 

As they matured, both became increasingly aware of their personal identities, which conflicted with the strict expectations of their families. One client became aware of her bisexual identity and, fearing severe repercussions from her family and society, concealed her sexual orientation. She described being forced to adhere to religiously prescribed dress codes and witnessing punitive measures within the household when family norms were challenged. The other client faced early marriage imposed by family traditions and the pressures of caring for multiple children while navigating a hostile environment. She also endured marital abuse, including physical violence, and struggled with the threat of forced compliance with restrictive gender norms. 

 

Exposure and Escalation of Threats 

 

For the first client, threats escalated when a former same-sex partner deliberately disclosed intimate details of their relationship to family members, accompanied by demands for money. The disclosure led to immediate hostility, including accusations of bringing shame to the family, threats of violence, and the withdrawal of financial support. These events left her isolated, financially vulnerable, and exposed to direct and severe risk from her family. 

 

The second client, after fleeing her war-affected home, encountered significant danger due to the instability of her region and personal circumstances. Following repeated exposure to violence, displacement, and threats from her spouse, she remained at risk of persecution from both her former husband and the wider socio-cultural environment. Her children’s welfare further compounded her vulnerability, as access to healthcare and education was severely limited in her country of origin. 

 

Specific Protection Concerns: 

 

Risk of Persecution:

 

1. Both women face serious risks if returned, including familial violence, forced compliance with strict cultural and gender norms, and threats to life and liberty.
2. .One client experienced targeted threats and blackmail after her sexual orientation was exposed, including threats of violence from family members and the suggestion of state involvement.
3. The other client endured domestic abuse, marital coercion, and threats associated with early marriage practices, compounded by ongoing instability in Syria.

 

Psychological and Emotional Vulnerability:

 

1. Both clients suffer from trauma-related mental health issues, including depression, panic attacks, and social anxiety, worsened by prolonged displacement and exposure to threats.
2. The first client’s mental health deteriorated further when her family withdrew financial support and actively threatened her life following the exposure of her sexual orientation.
3. The second client faces additional stressors related to caring for children with medical and developmental needs in a context of insufficient protection.

 

Impact of Delays and Government Policy:

 

      4. Both clients were directly affected by the UK Government’s temporary pause on Syrian asylum decisions.

      5. The pause left them in prolonged legal uncertainty, preventing substantive assessment of their protection  claims, delaying access to services, and exacerbating psychological stress.

     6. This policy created a period of indefinite limbo, particularly detrimental given their urgent and personalised    protection needs.

 

Practical and Social Vulnerabilities:

 

      7. Both women have been financially abandoned or constrained, limiting their ability to support themselves and access education or healthcare.

      8. They are socially isolated in a new country, dependent on external support networks that may not fully meet their needs.

 

Journey and Impact on Life

 

Both women undertook perilous journeys to reach safety, facing exhaustion, danger, and uncertainty along the way. Upon arrival in a safer country, they sought to rebuild their lives through education and independence. However, the threat of exposure and the lack of family support created acute insecurity for both. One client had to suspend her studies due to the withdrawal of tuition support, while the other continues to manage the complex needs of her children alongside her own health challenges, including previous surgical procedures and ongoing medical care.

 

Lifting the Pause and the Updated CPIN for Syria 

 

In mid-2025, after several months of review and evidence-gathering, the Government announced that the pause would be lifted and processing for Syrian protection claims would resume. On 14 July 2025, the Home Office published updated Country Policy and Information Notes (CPINs) on Syria, enabling decision-making to recommence. These updated notes were intended to provide officials with the latest available objective information on conditions in Syria so that protection claims including outstanding asylum and settlement applications could be assessed in line with published policy. 

 

The updated CPINs covered a range of thematic areas, including security conditions, humanitarian situation, women’s issues, internal relocation, and more. Significantly, some components of this updated guidance (including the Syria returnees note) reflected changes to the overall situation following the fall of the Assad regime, with sections noting the resumption of commercial flights to Damascus and reports of significant numbers of refugees returning to certain parts of the country. Nonetheless, even these updated notes emphasised that decision-makers must continue to consider claims on an individualised basis, taking into account each claimant’s specific circumstances. 

 

While the lifting of the pause marked a procedural milestone, the updated CPINs also generated concern among practitioners because in some respects they suggested a reassessment of generalised risk in ways that could be misinterpreted as reducing the scope of protection. In particular, the updated returnees CPIN (published July 2025) notes that returnees had not been found to face mistreatment by the Syrian Government as a group, placing the onus on the individual claimant to demonstrate otherwise. This raised alarm within the legal community because personalised forms of risk such as family hostility, honour-based violence and exposure of sexual orientation are not, and cannot be, captured solely by general country assessments. Decision-makers are reminded in those notes that risk must still be considered in light of individual facts, but the headlines around the CPIN’s broader language caused understandable worry among applicants and lawyers alike that highly vulnerable cases might be inadvertently downgraded under general policy framing. 

 

In summary, although the pause ended once the Government published updated CPINs in July 2025, the change in tone and emphasis in those policy documents created a new layer of complexity. Rather than resolving the uncertainty faced by applicants like our clients, the updated CPINs required decision-makers to navigate a more nuanced risk environment where strong personal factors still needed to be weighed against shifting interpretations of country conditions. This has made it even more crucial that cases involving honour-based threats, family hostility and exposure of sexual orientation be assessed on an individualised basis that recognises the specific and ongoing danger faced by the claimant.

 

Why the Case Remains Clearly Meritorious Despite the Pause and CPIN Changes 

 

Despite these procedural changes within the UK asylum system namely the pause on decisions followed by the issuance of updated CPINs, clients’ cases remain  strong on their own facts. The pause did not alter the reality that one client was subjected to targeted threats, financial abandonment, and explicit references to violence and possible reporting to state-linked actors following the exposure of her bisexual orientation to a conservative family. These threats were not abstract or hypothetical; they were expressed in clear communications from family members and are consistent with deep-seated societal hostility toward LGBT individuals in Syria. 

 

Although the updated CPINs may reflect the evolving situation in Syria in general terms, they do not displace the imperative that decision-makers must consider the claimant’s individual risk profile. Personalised threats rooted in family dynamics and honour-based hostility remain compelling evidence of real and ongoing danger that cannot be mitigated simply by generalised assessments of national stability or returnee safety. Indeed, guidance still emphasises that each claim must be assessed on its own merits, taking into account all relevant circumstances.

 

The fact that the UK Government initially paused all Syrian decisions because it believed there was insufficient objective information underscores how unsettled the situation in Syria was perceived to be in late 2024 and early 2025. The subsequent updated CPINs do not categorically establish Syria as a generally safe country for return; rather, they reflect the latest evidence available at the time and reinforce the need for individualised analysis. In this case, the combination of honour-based threats, family retaliation, explicit danger signals and the withdrawal of support creates a risk profile that remains incompatible with safe return, regardless of general policy direction.

 

Overview of the Previous Syria CPIN Before It Was Withdrawn

 

Before the UK Government paused Syrian asylum decision-making in December 2024, the Home Office relied on older country guidance mainly the “Syria: Security Situation” and the “Syria: Humanitarian Situation” CPINs last updated in 2022. Those CPINs were written in the context of an ongoing civil war and did not reflect the dramatic change in control of territory that occurred with the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

 

Because the political and security situation in Syria underwent a fundamental transformation including the collapse of the regime that had been the central focus of UK country guidance the Government concluded that the existing CPINs were no longer sufficiently current or robust to support credible decision-making about protection claims or safe return. As a result, all relevant documents (security, returnee and humanitarian Syria CPINs) were withdrawn entirely from use when the pause was introduced. This meant that there was effectively no current official UK country policy guidance on Syria at all available to decision-makers between December 2024 and July 2025.

 

Why These Gaps Matter in Practice

 

The problems with the previous CPINs were not minor technical issues, they went to the heart of how risk was assessed:

 

• They left decision-makers without reliable information about the new Syrian authorities and how they treat returnees and perceived adversaries.
• They offered no updated assessment of safety, repression or human rights violations under the post-Assad regime.
• They failed to address group-specific or individualised harms such as family retaliation or honour-based abuse, which are frequently central to complex protection claims.
• They were outdated to the point that they provided no solid evidential foundation for either determining protection needs or evaluating safe return conditions.

 

These shortcomings were precisely why the Government paused decision-making and why it withdrew all Syria guidance before publishing new CPINs in July 2025. The new CPINs were meant to fill those gaps with broader thematic coverage, updated security assessments and more nuanced frameworks for evaluating individual risk including segmented guidance on religious minorities, Alawites, military service and returnees after the fall of the old regime. 

 

In conclusion, these cases remains firmly grounded in compelling and individualised risk. Although the UK Government paused Syrian asylum decisions in December 2024 and later resumed them in July 2025 with updated CPINs, those developments do not diminish her specific risk profile. 

 

Conclusion

 

Ultimately, both clients were granted refugee status, recognising the severity and specificity of the risks they faced in Syria. They are now able to begin building their lives safely in the UK, accessing education, healthcare, and the support necessary to recover from past trauma and pursue independence. Their successful protection claims underscore the importance of careful, individualised assessment in asylum cases, particularly where family hostility, honour-based threats, or exposure of sexual orientation create acute and ongoing danger. 

 

Article by Shalini Mishra, a caseworker in Duncan Lewis’ award-winning public law team.

 

About Duncan Lewis Solicitors

 

Duncan Lewis is one of the UK’s leading legal aid providers, which is multi award-winning and renowned for its exceptional legal services and commitment to justice. The company employs a team of highly skilled solicitors offering top-tier representation in 25 fields of law, and ranked as top tier by the Chambers and the Legal 500 legal guides, and as one of the top 250 law firms in the country by the Times. Duncan Lewis was crowned Law Firm of the Year at the Modern Law Awards 2023, further establishing its credentials as one of the leading law firms in the UK.

 

The firm’s Immigration and Public Law team is particularly renowned for handling complex and high profile cases involving human rights and asylum seekers. With landmark successes in cases such as Brook House, the Rwanda Challenge, and Manston House, Duncan Lewis continues to provide unparalleled legal representation, ensuring justice for the most vulnerable.