Today, we face the prospect of a Middle East peace conference with disappointment at its delay and frustration that, yet again, negotiators embrace a framework that ignores the origins of the revolution and gives credence only to men with guns.
Watching the spectacle of governments maneuvering for a place at the negotiating table, one has to ask: where are the women who started this revolution? The reality in Syria today is radically different from March 2011, when young women and men across Syria united in peaceful demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Since then, the country has fractured, with ISIL controlling large swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq; Kurdish forces securing the north and pockets of control scattered between different militias and rebel groups. The conflict has left over 6 million people displaced, over three-quarters of a million refugees pushing into Europe and thousands dying along the way.
Women who organized during the uprising are serving as local peacebuilders in the conflict. For example, to the north in ISIL-controlled Deir Ezzor and the government-controlled Al-Hasaka, women are working to prevent the recruitment of child soldiers and small arms proliferation. In the contested city if Idlib women have organized discussion workshops on the links between Islamic principles and democracy. In Damascus, women are advocating for peace processes to include the political solutions laid out in the Geneva I Communiqué.
