Shafaq News- Damascus
The general commander of the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) said Monday that the all-female Kurdish force must be formally recognized and folded into the Syrian army, or women's hard-won rights in Syria will have no institutional guarantee.
"One of our foremost demands today is ensuring women's rights are enshrined in Syria's constitution," Rohilat Afrin told Shafaq News, arguing that the YPJ's continued existence as a military body, not its dissolution into a police auxiliary, “is the only credible protection for those rights.”
The YPJ spent years fighting in Rojava, the Kurdish-administered territory across northeastern Syria, as a core component of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This coalition led the ground war against ISIS.
In January, the Syrian government and the SDF signed a ceasefire and integration agreement, setting out a phased merger of SDF units into the national army. Three brigades are to be absorbed in al-Hasakah province and one in the Kobani area. The YPJ was not mentioned.
The Syrian government's position, stated by Ahmad al-Hilali, spokesman for the presidential team overseeing the deal, affirmed in a press statement that the Syrian army has no female combat component, and women may join a women's police force under the Interior Ministry.