Your Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, and partners,

It is an honor to speak here at the UN Women’s Offices. I believe that a place built on the belief that peace, justice, and equality are not privileges, but universal rights.
In just two days, the world will mark twenty-five years since the adoption of Resolution 1325, a landmark promise that women would stand not beside peace, but at its center.

A quarter of a century later, we must ask ourselves honestly: have we fulfilled that promise?
For the women, the women in conflict areas, particularly of Syria, this is not a moment of celebration. It is a moment of truth. Fourteen years of conflict, displacement, and economic collapse have left Syria in a fragile state and undergoing an uncertain transition. Institutions may have changed, but the mindset of exclusion, fear, and militarization has not.

And yet, I must say, it is a meaningful sign that the Syrian Permanent Representative to the United Nations is with us today, a presence that would have been unimaginable under the previous regime. I recognize his background in human rights, and I see in that a potential ally.

But for this change to be complete, it cannot stop at attendance; it must extend to listening, to hearing the voices of Syrians, especially women, who have paid the highest price for this conflict. And it must include taking into consideration the roadmap of trust-building between the new authorities and the people they govern. Because trust cannot be proclaimed, it must be earned.

Over the past two months, through the national consultation program of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement, which was founded by colleague Wejdan here, so, we worked as a team and conducted a series of dialogues and consultations with one hundred and twenty Syrian women from twelve regions, from Idlib to Damascus, from Sweida to Latakia, from Aleppo to Qamishli, Homs, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, Afrin, and Daraa. These women came from different backgrounds, sects, and contexts, but shared one purpose: to articulate a collective vision for rebuilding Syria and ensuring non-recurrence of the injustices of the past.

Their voices shaped a policy paper, soon to be published, that reflects their experiences, their priorities, and their political will. It is not a theoretical document; it is a roadmap to rebuild trust between the state and society. Their demands are not marginal to the political process; they are the political process. If these priorities are taken into account, Syria can move from violations to justice, from fragility to stability, from fear to dignity and trust.

Syria’s transition can only succeed if it recognizes three essential realities, realities voiced by women who live them every day.

The first is the reality of security.
Authorities speak of stability, but women across the country describe a life defined by fear, impunity, and silence. In the absence of the rule of law, women are abducted, threatened, and targeted. Their bodies remain battlegrounds for control, to send messages, to punish communities, to assert dominance over what remains of the social fabric. This is not only a security issue; it is a political failure, a failure to protect, a failure to reform, a failure to understand that peace without the safety of women and all civilians is not peace at all.

And we must start addressing the wound. Because if we do not face it, we will live with it, and it will continue to bleed through every attempt at rebuilding.
The massacres along the coast in March and the atrocities against communities in Sweida this summer tore open a national rupture, across identity, region, and trust.

In Sweida, schools remain closed or barely functioning, and the education of an entire generation is at risk. At the same time, the abduction of women and girls has become a weapon of intimidation, with over a hundred cases recorded in recent months. These are not isolated crimes; they are structural threats to peace and to the very idea of public life.

This issue must become a national priority, addressed through investigation, prevention, and the restoration of genuine security for all women and girls in Syria.

Security reform is not a technical process; it is a moral turning point, the line between repeating the past and rebuilding the future.

The second reality is justice.
Justice in Syria cannot be selective. It cannot address the crimes of the past while ignoring the crimes of the present. The women in our consultations reject any justice that divides victims by the identity of their perpetrators. Because justice that divides grief is not justice, it is another form of violence. Real justice must be transformative, dismantling the systems that allowed abuse to happen: impunity, corruption, and patriarchal powers that normalized violence.

The third reality is participation.
One or two women in visible positions do not make a process inclusive; it is tokenism. Representation without influence is not empowerment; it is performance. The women of Syria are not asking to be invited into decision-making spaces; they are demanding to shape them. They bring a clear roadmap for constitutional reform, for inclusive national dialogue, and., most urgently, for security sector reform. Because without a security system that protects rather than controls, no constitution will stand, and no peace will last.

To the international community, their message is clear: fund peace initiatives that are inclusive, transparent, and accountable. Tie every reconstruction dollar to measurable commitments, inclusive participation, equal justice for all victims, and a rights-based restructuring of the security sector. And support civil society initiatives that are building bridges between divided communities, working for civil peace, and fostering trust on the ground.

To the Syrian Authorities: Demands Voiced from the Ground

1. Reform the security sector to transform it from factional to national, a professional force that protects all citizens equally, upholds human rights, and ensures that weapons are held only by the state.
2. Rebuild the judiciary on the principles of independence, integrity, and competence, ensuring accountability and equality before the law.
3. Launch a nationwide dialogue process, local, regional, and national, to rebuild trust, heal divisions, and lay the foundation for a new social contract.
4. Criminalize hate speech and incitement while safeguarding freedom of expression, to protect the social fabric from renewed polarization.
5. Guarantee genuine women’s participation, at least 30% in all decision-making bodies, not as a token gesture, but as a condition for legitimacy and sustainable governance.
6. Prioritize education and recovery services in conflict-affected areas such as Sweida and the coast, ensuring that girls can safely return to school as a cornerstone of peacebuilding.

You cannot build trust without genuine security.
You cannot build peace without comprehensive justice.
And you cannot rebuild a state using the same patriarchal tools that helped destroy it.

Implement the thirty percent quota not as symbolism, but as a strategy for survival. Because women’s leadership is not charity, it is a capacity.

Excellencies, for twenty-five years, the world has debated how to include women in peacebuilding. The women of Syria are done waiting to be included. They have built the table.

Their roadmap is not a list of demands; it is the architecture of a peaceful, democratic Syria.

The question before us today is no longer whether we will listen. The question is: will we finally have the courage to follow their lead?

Because peace is not the silence of guns.
Peace is when justice becomes louder than fear.