SULAYMANIYAH – Several events were held in Arab and Kurdish cities in northern Syria ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 2017 on the 25th November.



This included a symposium held in the Ain al Issa camp by the Women House in cooperation with the Civil Council of Raqqa, the media centre of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said. The Ain al Issa camp hosts thousands of internally displaced persons from Deir ar-Zour and Raqqa provinces.

"We all want to know what our rights are today. As Syrian women, we discuss our issues and the violence that we have suffered” Nujin Yousef, an official of the Syrian Democratic Council said. “We, especially women, should discuss the issue of violence, and the methods that they [men] have practised against us,” she added.



“We know that we are liberated. We liberated Raqqa and we congratulate the people on their liberation. Soon we will liberate Deir ar-Zour, and we will build a new Raqqa and Deir ar-Zour, and we women will have an essential role in building Raqqa,” she said.

Nujin stressed the role of women in building society. “What is life for her? Is it a life or punishment? Women are being killed under any name, Daesh marginalized women for five years of fear,” she said. “Women were not free and couldn’t exercise their rights,” she said.



Moreover, she mentioned the biggest violations against women are sexual violence, child marriage. “We know women participated on all fronts in Raqqa, around 60 were martyred [killed],” she said, emphasising that there was no difference between men and women.



“During the days of the regime, and al Nusra, women had no role because they were marginalized and neglected” she stated. “We should not forget the participation of women in the Kobani and Raqqa resistance”.

Women rights play an important role in the self-administration's set up by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and it’s allies in northern Syria with a 40 percent quota allocated for women participation in government, and a co-chair system which ensures that women share power with men.

Laws also ban child marriage, polygamy, and forced marriage, promoting civil marriage and women rights over Islamic Sharia law.

Several officials from northern Syria have also condemned an Iraqi draft law put forward for discussion in Iraq’s parliament. The proposed law would allow for girls to get married from the age of nine.

“This is a form of systematic and deliberate violence against women, and a form of genocide against women,” the Syrian Women Council spokesperson Lina Barakat said in an interview with ANHA.

Up until now, this law has yet to be implemented. Last Saturday, the Iraqi parliament voted to recognize the Shiite paramilitary force known as Hashd al-Shaabi as an official force with similar rights as the Iraqi army instead.