Meet 13 women married to the world's biggest dictators

Updated

Behind every great man is a great woman, as they say. But who stands behind the world's biggest despots?

In good times and in bad, the ladies of the Dictators' Wives Club put up with a lot: corruption, political uprisings, and often other wives.

Some, like Rwandan first lady Jeannette Kagame, use their position to advocate for charitable causes. Others, like the president of Syria's wife, Asma al-Assad, are pros at looking the other way and smiling for official Instagram photos.

For this list, we defined a dictator as a near-absolute ruler known for human-rights abuses, restrictions on freedom of the press, and oppression of opposition.

Learn about the ladies below:

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