Women's revolution is revolution of combating violence in North Syria

SHINDA AKRAM / NEWS DESK

Despite the promulgation of many international laws and conventions that urge combating gender discrimination, combating violence and empowering women in all areas, especially after the incident of the sisters Mirabal, these laws did not reach the desired goals as a result of masculine mentality which suppresses every woman struggling for her rights.

Women have still been exposed to violence in all parts in the world to all kinds of maltreated, where women have been used as commodity to be sold and bought, not to mention the killing in different ways, and a good example is when the Iranian authorities executed the Kurdish women such as Sharara Eliasi.

The situation of the Syrian women before the revolution was not different from the rest of the world, where they have suffered from violence, including psychological and physical violence and early marriage due to the customs and traditions stemmed from the ruling masculine mentality. In the result of the Syrian crisis, women faced displacement and lost their children, not to mention the brutal practices of IS' gangs in the areas under their domination, including al-Raqqa city where large numbers of women were executed and others were stoned.

In Rojava and North Syria, the situation is different. With the launching of women's revolution in Rojava, the women have begun to organize themselves on the basis of free thought to combat the masculine mentality. In this dossier, we will show how women in North Syria were able to organize and rule themselves against violence

Establishing first women's union to become conference for all women

In 2005, the first women's union was founded in the name of Star Union, where the Union exerted great efforts in the framework of the organization of women till launching women's revolution in Rojava. The Union began launching raising awareness campaigns for women. In the result of the intensive turnout by the women of the area, in 2016, the name of the Union was changed to Kongra Star, thus, it becomes an umbrella for all women's movements and organizations whose number reached 20 and included all the components.

The Kongra is working on establishing a democratic system based on the principle of the participatory life from the smallest cell in the society, and the work of the Kongra extends to include all the women of all the components.

The conference held hundreds of campaigns, activities and events, the lasted of which was "Women, revolt for Afrin," where dozens of activists and jurists have come from around the world's states to join the campaign, such as World Mothers of Peace.

The official spokesperson of Kongra Star Avin Sweid has referred to the role of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan in the women's freedom, and confirmed that they had reached this stage through their adoption of the democratic nation's principle. The best example of that is the World Conference held in Germany, where hundreds of women from all world's states participated in, and during the Conference, it was shown how the struggle and resistance of women in Rojava amazed them.

Women have developed different ways for resolving issues in a distinctive way under their Autonomous Administration

At the beginning of the revolution, the first Women's House was opened in Qamishlo city. The first female member of the women's group who has been working on resolving the women's issues was Elham Omer and she said, "The importance of Women's Houses lies in solving the issues related to the two genders and training them in addition to focusing on resolving the issue through reconciliation and compromise according to the women's laws ratified by the Legislative Council in the Autonomous Administration.

Elham noted that after many years of work, they noticed a decline in the number of problems in Rojava areas, where the women have witnessed an intensive turnout by women in the areas have been recently liberated from IS' gangs, where those areas were ruled by IS represented by the masculine mentality.

The Women's Houses have been able to cease dozens of cases of marriage of minors and polygamy, as stipulated by the law of the Women's Body in article no 13 and article 24, to prevent them.

According to the statistics revealed by Women's Houses, they were able to accomplish many actions in 2017-2018, including the stopping of marriage of minors; 189 issues, polygamy; 255 cases, violence against women; 410 cases. The number of cases received by Women's Houses during these years reached 10,467 among them 5,138 cases were resolved, and 1,096 cases were transferred to the Office of Justice.

By changing the name of Reconciliation Committees in 2018 to the Justice and Reconciliation Committees, the number of complaints related to women and that were received by the Reconciliation Committees reached 1,313 among them 10,09 were solved, 74 were transferred to the Justice Court and 121 are considered.

Women's Body is a body that protects the rights of all women

As for the efforts made by the Women's Body and placed in the service of women, the Women's Body in al-Jazeera canton issued the Women's Law on 22/10/2014 in order to guarantee and protect women's rights legally.

The Body has also given hundreds of awareness-raising lectures to support women, introduce them to their rights and explain the Women's Law. The Women's Body continued its work to open a house to protect women from violence. This is considered the first of its kind in Syria and Rojava, where it receives women from the three cantons who have been exposed to violence and threatened with death. All services and facilities are provided to women to overcome their problems, overcome the violence practiced against them, and then, discussions are held with the families of women to resolve their issues, and a rehabilitating program is offered within the house to reintegrate them into the society and raise their morale. The Body has opened 4 centers of the psychological consultation in Oamishlo, al-Hasakah, Tel-Tamr, Gel Agha. The basic mission of these centers is to provide psychological advice and support to women exposed to violence by holding sessions, dialogue, discussion, and studying their psychological situations in addition to helping them to overcome the violence stage and return them to their families.

Sara Organization… Great efforts to reduce violence

Sara Organization for Combating Violence against Women provided great efforts to the women who had been exposed to violence, the women who had displaced and the women who are threatened with death. The Organization also established a series of groups to raise the family awareness, hold seminars on combating violence and discrimination in addition to organizing workshops for providing the women with the psychological support and language programming, lectures in schools, communes and camps.

Women's Justice Council... Solving the issues according to Social Justice

In the Women's Justice Council, there are Prosecution and Investigation Committees spread throughout in al-Jazeera region, in addition to 42 judges and 8 members of the Social Justice Council. These members also take their place in the Justice Council, where they have played a major role in organizing the Social Justice, Judicial Inspection Department, the Directorate of Investigation Committees, The Administration of the Implementation and the Administration of the Reconciliation and Justice Committees.

The Syrian Women's Council is an umbrella for all Syrian women

In order to expand the scope of women's work at the level of Syria in full, the Syrian Women's Council was established on 7-9-2017. It is considered an umbrella organization composed of civil associations, organizations and human rights activists in Syria. The aim is to activate the role of women in all fields and to combat violence against women in Syria under current conditions.

The decision to establish the Syrian Women's Council was followed by the women's struggle in many areas of Rojava. The Women's Council expanded its activities in the north and east of Syria, especially after the liberation of al-Raqqa, al-Tabqa, and Deir-ez-Zor cities from IS' gangs and stood with women after years of violence and hardship to help them activating their role in the organization, training and building the community.

As a result of the hard work, the Syrian women from various cities in Syria were gathered at a meeting held in Kobanî city on the 5th of last month with the participation of 300 civil and human rights activists.

Al-Raqqa women from blackness and injustice towards freedom

The women have severely suffered during the domination of IS' gangs on al-Raqqa city by imposing black veil on them. Many of them were stoned and killed in the center of the city because they did not comply with the wishes of IS' gangs. It was necessary for the Women Protection Units (YPJ) to launch a campaign to liberate them. After the Wrath of Euphrates liberated al-Raqqa in full, al-Raqqa women have started opening the Women's Houses and institutions, where the Women's Administration was opened in al-Raqqa which is considered as umbrella to all women in the city.

Jinoloji (Women Science) has been taught in North Syria for the first time

After the efforts made by women to implement democratic nation's principle and free life, the Women's Committee in the Education began incorporating Jinoloji subject in Rojava's schools, where it had previously been taught in Afrin. Furthermore, a special academy for Jinoloji in al-Jazeera region has been opened.

Women's Office in the Human Rights Organization documents the violations practiced against women

The Women's Office of the Human Rights Organization works to document violations against women. The Office recently documented the crimes committed by the Turkish occupation army against the women of Afrin among them 480 women faced forcible displacement from Afrin after the occupation, 43 were kidnapped by Turkish state's mercenaries among them Zuzan Bashir Sulaiman and Khadija Riad and 55 women were raped in Afrin.

Since 20th January 2018, 163 women have been killed and wounded in Afrin, the most recent was the killing of the old women whose name is Aisha Hanan who is at 80 after stealing her gold.

In al-Jazeera region, 6 women were killed, and in Kobani, 8 women were killed.

Tomorrow: The occupation of Afrin... The extermination of women

(T/S)

ANHA