One hundred fifty Syrian women graduated Tuesday from the country’s newly established police academy for women, marking a milestone in efforts to reconstruct the national security apparatus.
The ceremony took place in Al-Tal, north of Damascus, where rows of graduates — most wearing hijabs beneath regulation caps and berets — stood at attention with weapons before embracing family members. Brigadier General Huda Sarjawi, director of the Women’s Police Institute, described the graduation as the first cohort of policewomen in a “new Syria.”
“The participation of women in the security sector is a social necessity, and also supports the participation of women in all fields,” Sarjawi told AFP. She noted that recruits completed physical and military training alongside coursework in law and human rights.
Interior Minister Anas Khattab, who attended the event, posted on X that the graduation “reflects the presence of Syrian women and their contribution to serving the nation and society.”
For 22-year-old graduate May Aklajneh, a former university student, the opportunity fulfilled a lifelong ambition. “Becoming a policewoman was my childhood dream,” she said. Fellow graduate Alaa Qassem Wafaa, 23, acknowledged the training’s initial difficulty but expressed interest in advancing further through an officers’ course.
The academy opened in March, with the six-month program preparing graduates for deployment across interior ministry forces nationwide. While women previously served in limited numbers in police and military roles under the former Assad government, Syria’s new military does not currently accept female soldiers.
In the northeast, former fighters with the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) have been in discussions with the interior ministry regarding integration into state security forces, though no agreement has been finalized. The YPJ was part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which dissolved last month under a January deal integrating Kurdish forces and institutions into the state. Sarjawi confirmed that YPJ representatives attended Tuesday’s ceremony and that integration efforts are underway.