Training in gender in Çınar villages
DİYARBAKIR (DİHA) - With recent months seeing a rise in women's "suicides" under suspicious circumstances in rural areas of Northern Kurdistan, the women's center in an area stricken by these deaths has launched a training in gender.
The Jînwar Women's Center has launched gender trainings in local villages on subjects including social gender roles, violence against women, organizing, women's rights, and self-defense. So far, more than 300 women have taken part in the Kurdish-language trainings and seminars. Sociologist Ümran Nar says they are focusing the trainings on the rural areas where the most suspicious deaths of women—a rising problem in the region—have taken place.
The main demand of participants in the trainings and seminars, says Nar, has been for the men in the villages to participate. "What they said to us was, 'the ones who are oppressing us and exploiting us are men,'" said Nar. "In this situation, it's a bit utopian for us to be talking about equality and freedom."
Halide Türkoğlu, in charge of women's policies at the municipality of Çınar, says the reason they supported the project was for women to organize themselves. "When we say self-defense, what we really mean isn't necessarily physical defense; at the asme time it's the defense of consciousness, it's self-organizing," said Türkoğlu.
The project is continuing in five more villages until May 30.
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