Thank you for this important question.
Actually Canada was supporting the Syrian women’s political movement, which is like the one I'm part of, over the last seven years, which helped us to achieve a lot. The only woman minister in the cabinet now, Hind Kabawat, is co-founder of our movement. The fruit of all of the investment that Canada did in the past now is visible for everyone. What's needed now is to continue to support civil society and initiatives that support women's participation and also to put pressure on both the society and the government to increase women's participation, but also to engage with the government in terms of advising and supporting the government, for example, to remove all of the reservations on the CEDAW convention and to support the national action plan on peace and security. It's also to learn from other Arab countries, most likely Jordan, that have achieved a lot on this file.
There's a lot for Canada to do, but if you don't engage with the government, you can't also pressure a government to do something specific, specifically when it comes to women's participation, because historically in Syria we have women who have been marginalized by the law and by the society. Now it's time to see women in government, leading the change of the law in Syria and changing the social norms as well.