Bringing All the Women to the Table: Reshaping Politics in Syria

Objectives 

The panel discussion will enable States and relevant stakeholders, including human rights institutions and civil society organizations, to: 

1. Explore how to influence the constitutional reform process through supporting a feminist, inclusive, participatory, people-based and democratic course of action. This alternate feminist approach would ensure the advancement of gender and transitional justices and thus, ensure a political transition to a sustainable peace; 

2. Develop a better understanding of the feminist discourse about the political economy, and the economy of war, and how to address the gendered needs and priorities, while influencing the files of repatriation and reconstruction; 

3. Learn about the Syrian feminist movement at the grass-root level and discuss ways of creating linkages between women’s voices at these levels, and ways to amplify it at international platforms to influence and sustain feminist peace. 

Speakers 

Joumana Seif is a Syrian Jurist and Human rights activist. She is a co-founder and the head of the legal Committee of the Syrian Women’s Network. Ms. Seif is also co-founder of the Syrian Women Political Movement. Board member The Day After: Supporting a Democratic Transition in Syria. In addition, She is working on Accountability with ECCHR, The European Center for Constitutional& Human Rights. Before the Revolution, Ms. Seif was a member of Damascus Declaration from 2007-2012 Head of the Social Care and Development Department 1994 -2001 at Adidas textile Company – Damascus, Syria. 

Saba Hakim is from the city of Idlib, Syria and currently lives in Germany. She holds a pharmacy degree from the University of Damascus. She is a member of the Syrian National Council and of the Syrian Women Network. She is the director of the Medical Relief Office in Gaziantep and a founding member of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement and part of its General Secretariat. 

Sabiha Khalil a feminist advocate and political activist, is a founding member of the Syrian Kurdish first non-partisan women organisation “Komela Jin” and the Syrian Women’s Network. She is also a founding member of the SWPM, a member of the SWMP General Secretariat, and the Chairperson of the SWPM’s Organizational Committee. She has been active with organization on the ground handling human rights violations in north eastern part of Syria with specific focus on the Kurdish area. She has more recently started the “Dudari Peace Initiative” organization to amply the Kurdish political voices and advocate for human rights and women’s rights. She’s Ms. Khalil is a graduate of the University of Homs, Faculty of Literature – English Literature, and was an English teacher in Aleppo. 

The event is open to people holding a badge to the UN.