Syria’s lone female minister stakes claim to real power as country rebuilds

Hind Kabawat occupies an unusual and exposed position: the only woman serving in President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s transitional cabinet and the minister charged with social affairs and labour. She arrives in the job with a resume forged in opposition politics and mediation, and she is using that background to prioritise dialogue as a practical instrument for rebuilding fractured communities. Her brief covers urgent humanitarian needs—orphans, widows and families of the disappeared—while also demanding long-term work: jobs, homes and legal frameworks that can sustain reconstruction. Those tasks are being attempted in a context of pervasive poverty, active sectarian shocks and donor caution, all of which complicate the hand she has been dealt. International actors have begun to ease sanctions and provide funding, but the scale of damage and political volatility have left many states reluctant to commit at the level that reconstruction will require. Domestically, she faces limits to authority: a cabinet dominated by close allies of the president and reports that senior insiders are centralising appointment powers. Kabawat has made her retention conditional on being able to choose her deputies and to set a ministry strategy rather than serve as a ceremonial presence. Beyond institutional friction, the transitional political process has yielded minimal female representation in newly formed bodies, highlighting a gap between progressive rhetoric and electoral results. At the same time, grassroots networks and women-led organisations that operated during the conflict are positioning themselves as reservoirs of experience and legitimacy, which Kabawat attempts to channel into policy and training programmes. Security incidents and intercommunal violence have deepened mistrust and created immediate humanitarian pressure points that limit the government’s bandwidth for reform. Donor calculations are affected by regional instability, including cross-border strikes and the perceived strength of armed actors, which raises the cost of both financing and implementation. In sum, Kabawat’s role is a test case for whether technocratic credibility and local capacity can translate into concrete delivery in a transition marked by constrained resources and contested political control. The outcome will hinge on her ability to secure operational autonomy, marshal international assistance at scale, and convert local activism into durable institutional change. If those conditions are not met, female representation risks remaining symbolic while social and reconstruction gaps widen.