There are 22 women representatives in the new Syrian parliament – the first to sit since the overthrow of the Assad regime in 2024 – out of a total of 210 members.
Their appearance at the first session of the parliament on Sunday highlighted the diversity of Syria and the changes that years of conflict and upheaval have brought.
One woman MP, Madonna Beshara, who is from the country’s Christian minority , was chosen as parliament’s second deputy speaker.
Also among the women MPs was Fasla Yusuf, one of 70 MPs directly appointed by President Ahmed Al-Sharaa under controversial rules.
Her appearance in traditional Kurdish women’s clothing drew attention , as did that of Mirvet Sobhi Toto, who attended parliament in a niqab.
Like Yusuf, Toto was appointed directly by Sharaa. In July the names of the 70 MPs chosen by the president were announced, completing the makeup of the Syrian parliament and allowing it to convene.
Another 140 members were elected by special committees appointed for this purpose in 2025.
Yusuf is a member of the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party in Syria and previously served as the party’s secretary. She has also served as president of the Kurdish National Council.
These groups were opposed to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which previously dominated Kurdish-held areas of Syria, and she was arrested by PYD-affiliated forces in 2017 and spent 22 days in jail.
Yusuf was born in Hasakah province in 1970. She had previously stated in an interview with the Kurdish news network Rudaw that she would participate in the first parliamentary session in Damascus wearing Kurdish clothing and that she would attempt to take the oath in both Kurdish and Arabic.
Historically, Syria did not even recognize the presence of a Kurdish minority and under the Assad regime, the use of the Kurdish language and expressions of Kurdish culture were suppressed.
Yusuf’s appearance was in stark contrast to Mirvet Sobhi Toto, who is from Idlib province in northwestern Syria, which was under the control of rebels – including hardline Islamist ones - opposed to the Assad regime for years.
Toto was described on the social media platform X as the first woman to ever attend Syria's parliament in a niqab . She is the widow of Osama Namoura, also known as Abu Omar Saraqib, who led the Islamist rebel group Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest).
Namoura previously founded a branch of Jabhat al-Nusra – which was affiliated to Al-Qaeda – in Aleppo, before becoming the military commander Jaysh al-Fatah and the commander of military operations during the rebel campaign to capture Idlib city from the regime in March 2015.
According to the Syrian Memory website, Namoura was also one of the most prominent commanders in the battle to break the siege of Aleppo, which took place in August 2016.
However, his relationship with Jabhat al-Nusra was complex and he was detained in June 2016, accused of “abuse of authority.”
Media sources at the time linked this to an air attack targeting a meeting of Nusra leaders at Abu al-Duhur Airport in eastern Idlib province, which Namoura had missed without explanation.
Namoura was later killed in September 2016 in an airstrike believed to have been carried out by the United States, during a meeting of leaders from Jabhat al-Nusra’s successor organisation in the town of Kafr Naha.
15 of the 22 women in parliament were appointed directly by Sharaa while only seven were elected by the committees appointed in 2025.