The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on Monday declaring December 19 an International Day for Women Searching for the Disappeared, marking the first draft resolution submitted by Syria to the General Assembly since the ouster of ousted President Bashar al-Assad.

According to a General Assembly statement issued Monday, August 31, the resolution called on all member states and other stakeholders to mark the international day appropriately, by encouraging events and activities that highlight the efforts of women who have sought to find missing persons and have faced the consequences of doing so.

The resolution also encouraged member states and the UN system to take concrete measures to prevent and end all forms of discrimination and violence against women searching for missing persons, ensure they fully enjoy their human rights, and involve them in ongoing discussions and decision-making processes related to this issue.

Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ibrahim Olabi, said in remarks to the General Assembly ahead of the resolution’s adoption that Syrian women had faced the worst disaster of missing persons in modern history, in his words.

Olabi said he took pride in Syria’s transition from a dark period, when this pain was denied and the suffering of its victims was ignored, to a period that embraces the light, acknowledges the tragedy, and seeks to address it with full transparency — one that is even mobilizing the international community to support those affected, as he put it.

He added that in the past, this issue reached the UN General Assembly hall in spite of the Damascus regime, whereas today it comes from Damascus itself.

National Commission for the Missing Welcomes the Move

For its part, Syria’s National Commission for the Missing welcomed the UN’s adoption of the International Day for Women Searching for the Disappeared, affirming that the initiative stemmed from a proposal the commission had put forward based on the experience of families of the missing in Syria, which Syria then carried to the international organization.

The commission said in a press statement that the adoption of this day constitutes international recognition of the pivotal role played by women who have borne the burden of searching for their relatives, and affirms the importance of their active participation in efforts to search for and determine the fate of the missing.

The commission noted that this international recognition coincides with practical steps it is implementing on the ground, through the national Athar program dedicated to reporting missing persons and responding to reports concerning gravesites, protecting and documenting them, developing psychological and social support pathways for families, and empowering women and strengthening their participation at various stages of the search process.

More Than 177,000 in Rights Report

The file of the missing is one of the heaviest humanitarian issues in Syria. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented at least 177,021 people still forcibly disappeared since March 2011, including 4,536 children and 8,984 women.

In a report published Sunday, August 30, the network also documented the deaths of at least 45,365 people due to torture or inhumane detention conditions during the same period, including 45,038 people who died inside detention centers run by the Assad regime. The network noted that its use of the phrase “at least” reflects the likelihood that actual numbers exceed the documented cases.

The network said the fall of the former regime on December 8, 2024, did not end the violation of enforced disappearance or close the file on the missing, stressing that enforced disappearance remains an ongoing violation as long as the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person remain unknown.

It called for moving from the documentation phase to systematic efforts to determine the fate of the missing, protect evidence, identify mass gravesites, examine records and archives, and link scattered information, affirming the right of victims’ families to know the circumstances of the disappearance and the fate of their relatives.

The network warned of the danger of losing, tampering with, moving, or destroying evidence, calling on the Syrian government to treat the file of the missing as an urgent national priority and place it at the heart of the transitional justice process.

It also called on the public prosecution and judicial authorities to prioritize investigations into cases of enforced disappearance and deaths in detention, protect the chain of custody of evidence, and cooperate with the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.