The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on August 31, designating December 19 as an international day honoring women who search for missing persons, in the first draft resolution submitted by Syria to the General Assembly since the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

According to a General Assembly statement issued on Monday, August 31, the resolution called on all member states and other stakeholders to observe the international day in an appropriate manner by encouraging events and activities highlighting the efforts of women who have sought to find missing persons and the consequences they have faced as a result.

The resolution also encouraged member states and the United Nations system to take concrete measures to prevent and end all forms of discrimination and violence against women searching for missing persons, ensure their full enjoyment of human rights, and involve them in ongoing discussions on the issue and in decision-making processes that concern them.

Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ibrahim Olabi, said in a speech before the General Assembly shortly before the resolution was adopted that Syrian women had faced what he described as the worst missing persons crisis in modern history.

Olabi said he was proud that Syria had moved from a dark period in which this pain was denied and the suffering of its victims was concealed to a stage that, in his words, embraces the light, acknowledges the tragedy, seeks to address it with full transparency, and mobilizes the international community to support those affected.

He added that in the past, the issue reached the UN General Assembly despite the Damascus regime, while today it comes from Damascus itself.

National Commission for Missing Persons Welcomes Decision

The National Commission for Missing Persons in Syria welcomed the UN adoption of the International Day of Women Searching for the Missing, saying the initiative was based on a proposal submitted by the commission that grew out of the experiences of families of missing persons in Syria and was then brought by Syria to the international organization.

In a press statement, the commission said the adoption of the day represented international recognition of the central role played by women who have borne the burden of searching for their loved ones, as well as an affirmation of the importance of their active participation in efforts to search for missing persons and determine their fate.

The commission said the international recognition coincides with practical measures it is implementing on the ground through the national Athar program, which is dedicated to reporting missing persons, responding to reports concerning burial sites, protecting and documenting them, developing psychological and social support pathways for families, and empowering women and strengthening their participation throughout the different stages of the search process.

Rights Report Documents More Than 177,000 Disappeared

The missing persons file remains one of Syria’s most serious humanitarian issues. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented at least 177,021 people who remain forcibly disappeared since March 2011, including 4,536 children and 8,984 women.

In a report published on 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 who died inside detention centers run by the Assad regime. The network said its use of the phrase “at least” indicates that the actual figures are likely to 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 case of those who remain missing, stressing that enforced disappearance continues as a violation for as long as the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person remain unknown.

It called for moving beyond documentation toward systematic efforts to determine the fate of the disappeared, protect evidence, identify mass grave sites, examine records and archives, and connect fragmented pieces of information. It also stressed 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 evidence being lost, tampered with, moved, or destroyed, calling on the Syrian government to treat the missing persons file as an urgent national priority and place it at the heart of the transitional justice process.

It also called on public prosecutors 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.