Jin - Jiyan - Azadi « Women, Life, Freedom

These women refuse to succumb to the patriarchical view of the role of women that regards women as objects, trapped in their homes, and upholding the familys honour. It is without exaggeration to say that one could describe the current Kurdish feminist movement viewed from a military, ideological,

It is said that death at the hands of a woman deters a martyr from entering paradise ! One third of all Kurdish fighters in Western Kurdistan are women. Unafraid of death and fulfilled by their passion for their homeland and their love for their families and people, these women muster up the courage to face the heavily armed IS in Syria. One of their most recent victories includes the recapturing of the City of Kobane in northern Syria from the IS. The IS has kidnapped hundreds of Kurdish Yazidi women in Sindscha and sold them as sex slaves on markets, raped, and even beheaded them. It is in this context that the IS approves the most direct, extreme, and crass forms of patriarchy, sexism, and feudalism. These women refuse to succumb to the patriarchical view of the role of women that regards women as objects, trapped in their homes, and upholding the familys honour. It is without exaggeration to say that one could describe the current Kurdish feminist movement viewed from a military, ideological, and organiza- tional perspective as the worlds strongest movement on behalf of the rights of women. As soon as this war will be won, one of the »mountain’s daughters« states, the real fight just begins. Since the threat comes from the outside by IS incursions and from the inside. The fight for deliverance is equally directed toward old social tradition by which they are still sup- pressed. Within this no-man’s-land they are living in right now, they are outlawed, but in the Kurdish tradition in which they were growing up, they remained without rights too. Now, the emergency situation opens up for them the possibility to change something. These are the women who have to lose the least and to gain the most.