The Hague, 9 November 2020 – An online discussion to be hosted by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) this week seeks to explore the impact of the issue of missing and disappeared persons on Syrian women, and to advance policy discussions that would enable women to assume a greater role in the Syrian missing persons process.

Speakers will include Syrian civil society representatives and other experts who will discuss the challenges that women face as disappeared persons and as relatives of missing persons.

Syrian filmmaker Waad Al-Khatib, whose documentary For Sama won several awards, will discuss the impact of the Syrian conflict on women. Waddad Halawani, President of the Committee of the Abducted and Missing in Lebanon, will share experiences from her organization’s fight to ensure that those who disappeared in Lebanon’s civil war are accounted for.

Estimates cited by the UN in 2019 indicate that over 100,000 persons are missing as a result of the current conflict in Syria. As in other conflict areas, most of the missing are men. In the Syrian context, this has resulted in many women having to assume new roles, including that of breadwinner. Women also are active in searching for missing persons, in demanding justice for themselves and their families, and as proponents of a system to account for missing persons based on the rule of law.

The event follows an ICMP-led series of meetings that resulted in the report Accounting for the Missing is an Investment in Peace: Policy Process with Syrian Civil Society Organizations and Families of the Missing.

ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger and the Head of ICMP’s Syria/MENA Program, Lena Alhusseini, will speak at the event, which will be held in English and Arabic with simultaneous interpretation.

The event will be held 11 November 2020 from 12:00 to 14:00 GMT.

To register, please email  Yasmine.farhat@icmp.int