Archived: A call for the United Nations to manage the Syrian women file and their legitimate right of full participation and representation

The Arabic version of this statement, please visit:

http://goo.gl/forms/iUz1MKMosZKaQugR2

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1. Staffan de Mistura, UN Special Envoy To Syria,
   Mrs. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Regional Director of the United Nations for Women,
   UN-Women Executive Board Members,
   European Union / Commission, Parliament, Working Group for Syria, and all interested in women file

Petition to demand full representation and participation for the Syrian Women in the political process, and enabling them to reach all the political decision-making centers in order to deliver a just and lasting peace in Syria.

We are concerned for Syrian women citizens who experienced five years of grinding war and want to fight for peace for our country and our people. Because the role of women is an influential factor, we are requesting your wise management of our file to enable us to fully participate and voice our views and position in the conflict.

We appreciate your efforts and attempts to organize and empower Syrian women to participate in the process of decision making and building peace, starting from the Women’s Initiative in 2013 to Women Advisory Board in 2016, and lately the Women Conference for Peace Making in Beirut, May 20-21, 2016.

To ensure the success and feasibility of Syrian women politically and civilly, we emphasise on the importance of involving constituents from all private and public sectors, political and civic, in order to reach the optimum results. Consequently, this action will increase the effectiveness of decision making and the implementation of the political process, and the degree of acceptance among wide spectrum of the Syrian people. It should be noted that the current Syrian political and civil right women activist representation in the political decision-making is at its minimum and does not reflect the majority of Syrian women’s aspiration.

Based on the previous statement,

1. We urge you to renounce acclamation, authorization, and testimonial methods that have been followed in choosing participants in the Syrian affairs, which leads to exclusion, marginalization, and withdrawals. In order to facilitate and execute your output on the ground more effectively, acquire a fair and clear strategy for women’s participation that allows a versatile involvement from all different sectors of society.
2. We want to draw your attention to the necessity of taking into consideration the issue of the inability of many women activists, inside and outside of Syria, of communicating with the United Nations either due to security and technology reasons, or as a result of the current strategy adopted by you. Therefore, we urge you to work with all means to open direct channels of communication between them and the management of the United Nations Mission for women and international Syrian affairs.
3. We demand you to give Syrian women more reign, not just an advisory role. Commit to the Security Council Resolution 1325 that reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention of conflicts, peace negotiations, and political participation. Pursue democratic means to guarantee a more efficient acceptance of women which enables them to represent themselves and speak on their own behalf in all decision-making positions. We also propose an immediate action by the UN envoy to Syria and the UN Women to begin archiving data for all the registered political and civil women organizations, and make a real assessment of their representation with the help of a competent international organization to follow up on their work and verify their transparency, credibility, and decision-making mechanism. Guide and support these organizations in order to create real democracy in collaboration with United Nations.

Syrian women have suffered far too long during the prolonged years of bureaucratic domination and exploitation. The time has come to allow a real opportunity for all the sincere voices to express their position and views.

We, the undersigned, agree on this petition and are submitting our names and signatures