On the Fortune International Discussion board in Riyadh, the newly appointed Syrian minister of social and labor affairs, Her Excellency Hind Kabawat, spoke about the way forward for a nation rising from practically 14 years of civil conflict beneath a brand new administration. The nation’s solely feminine minister, Kabawat described her passionate appeals to Syria’s new president—and to the worldwide neighborhood—to ensure that her standing as Syria’s solely feminine minister ends quickly, with extra girls becoming a member of her.
“I think we have the will, and we want to have more women,” she mentioned, including that it’s “lonely” and “not fair” that the Syrian parliament has solely six girls. “Am I upset? Very. Am I angry? Very. But are we going to do something about it? Yes,” she argued, noting that President Ahmed Al-Shara has promised to carry extra girls into his new authorities. Al-Shara acknowledged “shortcomings” within the election outcomes that produced solely six girls in parliament, together with 10 members of non secular and ethnic minorities among the many 119 individuals elected to the brand new Individuals’s Meeting. The election didn’t characteristic a direct in style vote, however relatively an electoral faculty for two-thirds of the federal government’s 210 seats, with the rest being appointed by Al-Shara himself.
In January, Al-Shara met with a delegation of Syrian-American girls on the Individuals’s Palace in Damascus, L24 Levant reported, vowing to make appointments primarily based on “competence without discrimination” and committing to advancing girls’s rights and empowerment. “Syrian women have always played an active and distinguished role in society,” Al-Shara mentioned, in response to the outlet.
Rebuilding the mosaic of Syria
Minister Kabawat is a member of the Christian minority and a longtime member of the opposition to the previous dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad that was defeated by Al-Shara in late 2024. The New York Occasions reported that Minister Kabawat’s earlier exile from Syria started in 2011, after she gave a speech in New York that was met with displeasure from the dictatorship. On the Fortune International Discussion board, she framed the rebuilding of Syria as a take a look at of endurance and collective goal. “Rebuilding means more than reconstruction,” she mentioned. “It’s about restoring stability, trust, and systems that hold society together.”
The challenges stay monumental. She described the immense poverty that she witnessed when she visited Damascus after her exile ended: “The economy is in shambles. The banking system is still comatose.” She defined that her ministry, shaped from the mixture of preexisting social affairs and labor ministries, is accountable for all of Syria’s susceptible communities corresponding to orphans, refugees, and folks with particular wants. She advised Gorani that she is engaged on a “special social protection program” to combat poverty. Correct statistics are laborious to return by, she mentioned, however she estimated the poverty charge at nearly 90%. But, she insisted, persistence and cooperation are Syria’s solely means ahead. “There’s no magic stick,” Kabawat mentioned plainly. “Only hard work.”
All through the dialog, Kabawat repeatedly emphasised that “inclusivity is key,” noting that Syria has many religions and ethnicities. “Syria is a mosaic,” she mentioned. Alawites, Kurds, Druze, Sunnis, all should play a component in rebuilding the nation, she famous. “We cannot control Syria by power.” The one means ahead is to incorporate individuals and to hearken to them and their struggling.
She described visiting households from once-warring communities and discovering the identical unifying longing: All of them need the identical factor, she mentioned: a faculty for his or her kids, a clinic, and a protected residence.
Minister Kabawat’s optimism comes regardless of immense obstacles. The promised lifting of sanctions and greater than $6 billion in pledged reconstruction support from Saudi Arabia have but to trickle right down to the day by day lives of abnormal Syrians. “It’s taking time,” she acknowledged. “People don’t understand how long change can take. But it will come.”
She emphasised that the fast priorities are restoring electrical energy and water, adopted by increasing social safety applications to supply a security web for the poor. “Once money goes into social protection and helping the poor and making a better system, people will start feeling it,” she mentioned.
