Syria: Confronting the grave global challenges and achieving development in societies requires enhancing youth and women’s participation

Syria has affirmed that confronting the current grave global challenges requires mobilizing all energies and enhancing the participation of youth and women in various sectors to advance societies and achieve stability and prosperity.

During a Security Council session last night on (Promoting Conflict Prevention – Empowering All Actors, including Women and Youth), the Diplomatic Attaché at the Syrian mission to the United Nations Marah Mustafa said that the Syrian women have played pioneering role in dealing with the repercussions of the terrorist war, as they were partners in combating terrorism and confronting its ideology based on ignorance, extremism and hatred.

“Syria believes in the importance of involving women and youth in decision-making, in developing national plans and programs and in civil and volunteer work. To achieve this, the Syrian state institutions continue to develop legislative and administrative frameworks and creating and training national cadres and providing opportunities with the aim of guaranteeing full representation of all segments of society on an equal footing and without any discrimination.

Mustafa explained that the terrorist war launched on Syria has had grave effects on all Syrians, including women and youth, and exposed them to unprecedented challenges.

Despite this, Syrian women had an honorable pioneering role in confronting these challenges and dealing with their effects, as they were partners in combating terrorism and confronting its ideology, which is based on ignorance, extremism, and hatred, they were also a strong support for families that lost their breadwinners. They actively participated in community activities and the work of civil society organizations, and continued to hold various positions in the state and society, as the percentage of women in local administrative councils reached five times their percentage in 2010, and their percentage also reached 44.3 percent of the number of workers in public agencies in the country, and 57 percent of those working in the judiciary.

Mustafa pointed out that the Syrian women, who have faced the Israeli occupation and its crimes in the occupied Syrian Golan for more than five decades, and have suffered for many years from the worst crimes of terrorist organizations, are the best persons to understand the pain and suffering of their sisters in the occupied Palestinian territories who are facing the Israeli war machine that has killed more than 9,000 women during 160 days of genocide, in addition to thousands of young men and children. All this happened while the American administration, which pays lip service to defending human rights and empowering women, continues to prevent the Security Council from assuming its responsibilities to stop the aggression, she went on to say, stressing that talking about the role of women in Building peace requires ending the Israeli occupation of Arab lands and putting an end to the suffering of women under the yoke of occupation.

Hamda Mustafa