Syria’s only female minister follows in footsteps of Jesuit ‘mentor’ Paolo Dall’Oglio

By Joseph Tulloch

On the desk of Hind Kabawat, the lawyer, professor, and activist who is the only woman and only Christian minister in the Syrian transitional government, there are no photographs of political figures or family members. Instead, there is a photo of Fr Paolo Dall’Oglio, an Italian Jesuit priest who dedicated his life to building interreligious relationships in Syria.

“He was my mentor”, Kabawat says, speaking to Vatican News at an interreligious conference in Rome. “He was the one who taught me about dialogue.”

Dialogue is a key concept for Kabawat, who, before being appointed as Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in 2025 following the fall of the Assad regime, had dedicated much of her career to peacebuilding and interfaith initiatives. Dialogue, moreover, is an important concern for the government she now serves in, which took power following a lightning military campaign in late 2024. Largely composed of former Islamist rebels, it must plot a way forward for a country caught between Islamist and secularist tendencies, and divided into numerous ethnic and religious groups – Sunnis, Kurds, Druze, Ismailis, Yazidis, Alawites, Christians and others.

In this regard, Kabawat is keen to highlight the announcement, made in late August, that the process of integrating previously autonomous Kurdish civil and military institutions into the Syrian state has been completed. “We’re on the same page now”, Kabawat says, describing the integration as among the “biggest achievements” of the transitional government so far.

Kabawat meets Pope Leo at the General Audience on 9 September

But relations between ethnic and religious groups in post-Assad Syria have not always been easy. In March 2025, massacres targeting Syria’s Alawite minority left some 1,500 people dead, with a Reuters investigation finding that government-aligned forces were involved in the killings. In the south of the country, the Druze population has clashed with Bedouin tribes, while ISIS remains a persistent threat in the east, launching attacks against government and Kurdish forces.

“There are tensions”, Kabawat admits, “and there have been violations of human rights. Because of the years of war, poverty, and oppression, some people have become very sectarian.” Syria is a country with “deep pain, and deep wounds”, the minister adds. But she has faith that dialogue can prevail: “The situation is improving, because of our national dialogue and civil society initiatives.”  

After more than a decade of civil war, rebuilding the nation is a painstaking task. As well as social divides and security issues, the transitional government must find a way to address Syria’s severe economic crisis, and build viable institutions.

What dialogue means in practice, Kabawat suggests, is that every Syrian must be open to a degree of compromise. “If people are very radical, they should know that they cannot make all of Syria radical,” she says. “If people are very secular, they should know they cannot make all of Syria secular. We can find common ground: we need to have a good constitution, we need to have a rule of law, we need to all be equal.”

For Kabawat, women’s voices are an essential part of this process. She has spoken of the decisive role women played in preserving Syria’s social fabric during the civil war, and voiced her disappointment that they are not better represented in the new transitional government. “On the first day, I asked ‘why are there no more women?’”, she told the BBC earlier this year, adding that President Al-Sharaa has told her that more women will be appointed to senior roles in the future. Asked whether progress has been made toward these appointments, she points instead to the developments within her own ministry, where, she says, half of the fourteen regional directors will soon be women.

Religious diversity is another key issue for the minister, and one she thinks should be kept at the centre of conversations about the nation’s future. She speaks of Syria, a Sunni Muslim-majority country with sizeable minority populations, as a “mosaic” of different religious confessions, and describes the “non-sectarian” mindset of the Syrian population. Within her own family, “some of us are Orthodox, some are Catholic, and some are Protestant”, she says: “Any church I see, I go and pray.” The same openness to religious diversity exists at a national level, she suggests: “In the life of every Syrian Muslim there is a Christian doctor, or a teacher, or a friend, and vice-versa.”

Advertisement

It is in this context, Kabawat says, that the Holy See has a role to play in the reconstruction of the nation. Just days before her visit to Rome, the new Apostolic Nuncio to Syria, Archbishop Luigi Roberto Cona, presented his credential letters to the Syrian President, and held a meeting with Kabawat. “He’s very active, very energetic”, Kabawat says. “We’re planning to do lots of work together.” Catholic organisations, she adds, “work with the vulnerable, they work with the poor, with refugees … When Syria needed them, they were there for us.” As for the prospect of a papal visit to Syria sometime in the future, she says only: “I think I would have a heart attack from happiness.”

What emerges during our interview is how much Kabawat owes to Paolo Dall’Oglio, the Italian priest whose photo she has on her desk. Like her, Dall’Oglio was an outspoken proponent of interreligious dialogue, and like her he was a critic of the Assad regime. After being expelled from Syria during the early years of the Syrian revolution, Dall’Oglio returned to the rebel-held city of Raqqa, where he disappeared without trace. Kabawat speaks movingly of her last encounter with him, and explains that when, years later, she found herself in Raqqa, she visited the café where Dall’Oglio was last seen in order to pray.

The challenges – economic, institutional, and social – facing Syria’s new government are considerable. Like her Jesuit mentor, however, Kabawat has faith in the power of dialogue and collaboration to address even the thorniest issues. “If we work together, we can achieve great things”, she says. “If we don’t, we won’t go anywhere.”