Damascus, Sept. 02 (SANA) The Syrian Network for Human Rights on Wednesday welcomed a U.N. General Assembly resolution designating Dec. 19 as an international day recognizing women searching for missing persons, while urging that the move be followed by practical measures on truth, evidence preservation and accountability.
The General Assembly adopted the Syrian-sponsored resolution without a vote on Aug. 31, according to the rights group. The initiative grew out of the experiences of families of missing persons and was later advanced through Syrian diplomacy at the United Nations.
SNHR said the decision represented international recognition of the role women have played in searching for missing relatives and defending families’ right to know the fate of their loved ones.
The group said the significance of the resolution should go beyond symbolic recognition and support existing obligations to search for missing persons, provide families with reliable information, protect records and burial sites, identify human remains and ensure access to remedy and accountability.
SNHR stressed that women are not only relatives searching for missing family members but can themselves be victims of enforced disappearance. It called for allegations of sexual violence and other forms of gender-based violence linked to detention and disappearance to be investigated under safeguards protecting confidentiality, dignity and survivors’ safety.
More than 177,000 forcibly disappeared
SNHR said the issue of missing and forcibly disappeared persons remains one of Syria’s largest human rights and transitional justice challenges.
According to its latest database update, issued Aug. 30, at least 177,021 people, including 4,536 children and 8,984 women, remain forcibly disappeared in Syria since March 2011.
The group said it has documented the deaths of at least 45,365 people due to torture or inhumane detention conditions over the same period, including 45,038 who died in detention centers operated by the former Assad government.
SNHR said the fall of the former government on Dec. 8, 2024, created new opportunities to access archives, former detention centers and burial sites, but did not end the state’s obligations to search for the missing, protect evidence, investigate violations and provide redress.
It called for determining the fate of all missing and forcibly disappeared people to be treated as a central national priority, with full and safe participation by families and women searching for missing relatives.
The group further called for the protection of archives, detention records, former detention sites and mass graves, as well as stronger coordination between Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons and the U.N. Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic.
The U.N. Independent Institution, established by the General Assembly in 2023, is mandated to clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing persons in Syria and support victims, survivors and their families.
SNHR said recognition of women searching for the missing should not replace the broader right of all families to know the fate of missing relatives, and argued that truth-seeking, evidence preservation, reparations and accountability should be treated as interconnected processes.
The issue was discussed at a U.N. Security Council Arria-formula meeting in July on transitional justice and missing persons in Syria. Participants included U.N. officials and Mohammad Reda Jalkhi, head of Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons.
R.A/R.K
