Joumana Seif

Joumana Seif (; born 1970) is a Syrian human rights activist and former businesswoman. The daughter of textile manufacturer and political dissident Riad Seif, Seif started her career working at her father's factory, before training as a lawyer following his arrest and imprisonment in 2001. Living in exile from Syria since 2012, Seif has advocated for the inclusion of women in the rebuilding of Syrian society following the civil war, for which she received the 2023 Anne Klein Women's Award from the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Early life and education Seif was born in 1970 and raised in the conservative Al-Midan neighbourhood of Damascus. Her father, Riad Seif, was a textile manufacturer who became a member of parliament as an opposition politician against Hafez al-Assad during the 1990s. As a child, Seif's uncle disappeared after being detained by Syrian soldiers, while her cousin was imprisoned and tortured over 13 years at Tadmor Prison and Sednaya Prison; in 1991, Seif's brother Eyad disappeared while on a trip to Latakia. Seif's family were regularly spied on by government forces.

After graduating from high school, Seif began studying French literature at university, but soon dropped out to work at her father's factory. She later became the manager of its social welfare and development department, which she had initiated, providing educational programmes, healthcare and social services for the factory's workers, and was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Damascus Businesswomen's Council. Due to her father's opposition and criticisms of the Syrian government, he experienced harassment from authorities, including a high level of taxation, which led to the factory closing and him declaring bankruptcy in 2000. A member of the Syrian democracy movement, in 2005 Seif was among the signatories of the Damascus Declaration, which decried the Assad regime as being "authoritarian, totalitarian and cliquish" and called for "peaceful, gradual" reform.

In exile (2012–present) In 2012, the year after the Syrian revolution, Seif left Syria, citing concerns for her safety after she and her family received death threats. In 2013, after periods living in the United States and Egypt, she settled in Berlin, Germany.

Seif is a member of the Policy Coordination Group, a Syrian-led initiative on missing and disappeared people facilitated by the International Commission on Missing Persons. In 2026, Seif became the director of the Riad Seif Foundation for Human Rights, which trains people in international law.

Recognition In 2023, Seif received the Anne Klein Women's Award from the Heinrich Böll Foundation due to her work to have sexual violence classified as a war crime and a crime against humanity.