Yekitiya-Star back in force in Kobanê

2015-03-25 11:20:53

KOBANÊ (DİHA) – The women's movement in Kobanê has resumed grassroots work organizing neighborhood assemblies. Women's organization Yekîtiya Star held a meeting yesterday to resume the grassroots organizing work.

When Daesh attacked Kobanê intensely starting in September, entire neighborhoods emptied out as civilians were forced to abandon the city. As tens of thousands of Kobanê citizens have begun returning since the city's January liberation, Yekitîya Star members say they want to rebuild the women's movement in their neighborhoods. "The neighborhood assemblies that Yekîtiya Star had formed in Kobanê were a historic effort to solve the basic problems of women on every street in the city," explained Ruken Ahmed, a coordinating member of Yekîtiya Star. "But Daesh's attacks on the city stopped most of our operations."

She says now hundreds of everyday women returning to the city, many of them veterans of the 40-year women's movement in the region, have been working to restart the assemblies. "Now it's imperativethat we come back with stronger work than ever," said Ruken. She says women are beginning to hold elections for leadership in their assemblies and restarting work on the women's academy project that was gaining speed when Daesh attacked.

"Maybe before it was a question of working against backwards forces within society, but now it's a question of bringing the sacrificial spirit of Arîn Mîrxan into a project of creating a free women," said Ruken. "Now women's organizations are coming from around the world and telling us, 'we work to intervene at the point of all forms of violence against women, but you're doing the opposite. You're struggling to totally remove the backwards attitude towards women and the danger against them. You're stopping violence from happening at all.'"

Ruken says that in the wake of women's defense of Kobanê, this project is more urgent than ever. The women started their first meeting with a minute of silence to honor the martyrs.

(cm/nt)