In the fall of 2025, a group of women from Rojava traveled across Europe to report firsthand on the events in Syria. We were fortunate to meet them to discuss the struggle for women’s liberation in North- and East Syria, as well as to exchange information about the struggles of women in Germany and elsewhere. We give our heartfelt thanks to Jiyan, Mizgin, and Georgette for joining us. We also thank the woman translator for her work bringing Arabic into English for us. And finally, thank you to all the women who attended with curiosity and questions. For more information, visit the event page.

The following transcript is made available in English, we translated some German passages. We processed the sound recording of the event using an audio-to-text transcription program. Then German-, English- and Arabic-native speakers compared the text to the audio for accuracy and clarity.

Part 1: Presentation

Part 2: Discussion

Part 1: Presentation

In 2011, when the revolution started, the goal was to free the people and to allow the people to progress. However, after a while the revolution shifted to something different. The people wanted to build a new country for Syria, but unfortunately, these goals were not achieved: to remove or overthrow the government, and to bring more opportunities to the people, especially the women. 

In Rojava, the revolution shifted differently towards creating new systems, with more organization for women and for social life. The resistance was organized. From the first moment, women had a very big role in the resistance. Women held arms, and through that, society’s view of women changed. If a woman can hold arms against one of the most brutal groups out there, like ISIS, then she can do anything. This changed the people’s mentality. It is true that the Kurdish women started first, but very soon after the Arab women, the Assyrians (Ashuriya), Turkmens, Cirassian women, and all other women joined. From this, the resistance grew. Women started different parties and organizations and associations.

One of the best achievements is the co-chair system. In every single organization, every role has a 50-50 partnership between women and men. So whenever there is a leader who is a man, there must also be a leader who is a woman, and the leadership role is always co-chair. That wasn’t only political but in every single aspect: economic, operational, societal. Also on the personal level. Besides women’s roles in larger organizations, there were also different associations and organizations that were women-led to educate and organize through women-only groups. 

Another big achievement was changing the Syrian constitution. Before, women did not have any constitutional rights. Even those that were written in the constitution were only on paper and were never actually enacted. One of the most important things that the Rojava revolution brought was the first law that protects women, which progressed through time to also protect the family. This includes the children, the women’s role within the family, and the protection of the family itself. Now it’s called the law of the family.

Another achievement was the Mala Jin, the women’s houses. So, because we grew up in the Middle East, in places with very strong traditions and very strong patriarchy, there was never any support or protection for women. One of the achievements of the revolution is the establishment of women’s houses to protect women who are facing violence or are under any threat of violence. These homes, the Mala Jin, are open for the women. 

There are also other protection homes that are open specifically for women who face violence from their family and who need space for safety. Some women, for different circumstances, were left completely alone without family, without any support. So there is a small village established for women, and it’s called Jinwar. This village has different homes for all the women, with a school, farms, and places where the women can work and sustain themselves. Jinwar is a women-only village.

There are so many more achievements to talk about, but I don’t want to take all the time. I do want to remind us all that for 13 years all of these achievements were done through the war, through constant bombardment, through all the offensives from ISIS and all the efforts from the Syrian government to destroy this project. The women’s resistance never stopped from 13 years ago until today. This is important to remember, that all of these achievements were reached under horrible circumstances.

That is why it is so important to create a women’s union between different groups as well, between different countries and across different generations. So this struggle and these achievements and these gains can sustain through different borders as well as across different generations. And this is why it’s so important to sit here with you, to talk and to co-learn from one another, and to pass that on. 

GUEST: I don’t know if I missed it, but did you introduce yourself, like from which structures you come from? 

JIYAN: I’m Jiyan Huseyn, a member of Kongra Star.

GUEST: And the other three women are?

MIZGIN: One is from the Arab Women’s Gathering, Zenobia. This is an organization of Arab women who are mainly organized in Raqqa, Tabqa, Deir ez-Zor, the regions which were occupied by ISIS before. Another woman is from the Syrian Women’s Council, and another woman is from the Women’s Council of North and East Syria. The Women’s Council of North and East Syria is like a council of different women organizations and NGOs, with women from different political parties. They came together as a council to represent the different ethnic groups and different kinds of organizations from north and east Syria. The Syrian Women’s Council works on the level of the whole of Syria to organize women.

GUEST: So many women’s organizations…

MIZGIN: And many more…

GUEST: You were talking about setting up women’s aid, like houses where women can live, women who are under threat or under violence from husbands or the community or the family. Did they know about similar things in Europe, or did they just kind of find this solution on their own? 

JIYAN: No. We didn’t see it.

GEORGETTE: We didn’t see it.

MIZGIN: At first, they built up the Mala Jin. It’s translated into women’s houses, but it’s not working like the women’s houses here. The Mala Jin is a place where women can go and ask for advice, discuss and ask for support when they see their rights are violated. There’s a Mala Jin and then there’s also the Ashtarot, which is like the Assyrian women’s houses in the regions where also Assyrian people live.

GUEST: Is it more of a political thing or a social thing? 

MIZGIN: Social thing. If you’re threatened at home by domestic violence, if there’s underage marriage, if your man wants to marry another or a second or a third wife, then you can go there and have the support of the woman’s house. After the Mala Jin were established, a little bit later, women saw that there was a need for shelters. And so the women’s ministry has built up these women’s shelters in mainly all cities. Women can stay in these shelters, which are more like the model of the women’s houses in Europe, I think. It’s important to mention that the building of women’s shelters was grassroots work based on women’s needs. 

GUEST: Yes. The same things happened everywhere. You learn the situation and you act and you do support.

GEORGETTE: (something falls down) Whenever there’s a loud noise, it’s very triggering.

The area where I come from and where I organize is in Cezîre, which is in northeast Syria on the border with Iraq. This area is of course super diverse with the different religions and different sects and different backgrounds. This area, Mesopotamia, is one of the oldest civilizations on earth. It’s 7,700 years old, and this adds to the diversity. Unfortunately, this area which is very important, very old and very diverse has not been taken care of by the Syrian government. The further growth of this area has not been allowed, despite being one of the most economically rich areas in Syria from oil to wheat and cotton. The area lacks public services such as schools, factories or other different public supports. The people are living in poverty, but always trying to live from their own work, from whatever they can achieve on their own rather than from any governmental support. 

This has been a long story since Assad – not this one, but the father. Since then, there was no recognition of any other ethnicity, no other nationality, besides Arab: the only ethnicity was Arab, the only nationality was Syrian, and the only party that was allowed was the Al-Baath Party, which was the one and only party that everyone must subscribe to. Any other ethnicity and any other language was washed away. The only language allowed in Syria was Arabic, from education to government offices. It went so far to even the extent of not allowing the names of the children to have any association with Assyrian roots or Kurdish roots or any other roots that are not Arab. If I would give my son a name that is not Arab-sounding, any name that has associations with Assyrianism, they wouldn’t allow it. And the people who worked in any government or civil office had to be members of the Baath party. And that’s why, when the revolution started, we all had a very similar struggle to connect through, whether Arabs or Kurdish or Assyrians. 

We all had a very similar oppression that we were dealing with, and that brought us together. The Syrian army was in the region the whole time to keep control, but the moment when ISIS and the other fighting parties came, immediately the Syrian army left the region and left the people to fend for themselves. That’s why, as previously said, it’s crucial to build establishments for organizing, and as well for resisting. And that’s why one of the first accomplishments of the revolution was the social contract which was very important to write together. 

The social contract had very specific points of importance towards women and youth. It was very clear that women have a key role in all aspects of life: in the social aspect, in the organizational aspect, as well in the resistance aspect.

This is also when different women fighter groups started. There was of course the YPJ from the Kurdish women, but also there was the HSNB, a specific Assyrian women’s fighting group. There were other militant groups from the Arab women as well, and all of these groups were soon on the front. To the furthest extent, these groups were independent and self-determining in organizing and training themselves. They were co-organizing with the Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF, but they had their own autonomy. 

Women on the front lines who were facing ISIS were daughters, our daughters. These women were from the community, and of course, everyone was always praying for them. We were scared for them. But we soon realized that ISIS was actually more scared of the women. It was shocking for ISIS to realize that they are now going head to head with a woman, and that they will die by a woman. The resistance was throughout the Northeast region of Syria. But additionally we were also being confined to the Northeast because the government at that time was also persecuting us.

All of this progress and all of this work was achieved also under constant bombardment by the Turkish government. Infrastructure was targeted specifically, from schools, hospitals, waterways –  any infrastructure in the region was targeted and destroyed by the Turkish government. Throughout that time, there was no water. The only waterway was in Ras al-Ayn, near the border with Turkey, so it was very easy for the Turkish government to stop the water. This was one of the first times that cutting the water was used as a war tactic. Of course there were lots of bombardments. More than 14,000 people were murdered, and more than 20,000 people were injured (Editor’s note: those numbers refer to all people killed and injured since the beginning of the revolution, including fights against ISIS, against the Assad regime and Turkish bombardments).

Since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, there was a glimpse of hope that now there is some room to grow, to go into the other parts of Syria, and to share the experience, and try to grow it through the rest of Syria.

Soon after, Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as al-Jolani, took power by appointing himself. In his new regime, his mindset is clear regarding different ethnicities, different beliefs and religions, and very, very specifically regarding women. The ideology that he follows is the Islamic tradition, which has specific consequences for women. But his ideology is also against any other nationalities, any other beliefs and religions. In his new government, there is only one woman, and this one woman is basically in charge of the ministry of social affairs and education. 

The struggle continues. The north and east region is alienated. Onslaughts have started, for example in Latakia against the Alawites, as well for the Druze more recently. Offenses are happening against Christians, against different churches, against different minorities. Right now in the northern east of Syria, we are working towards a political solution to stop this. 

Nowadays the violence is happening against people based on their identity, through their ID if they’re Kurdish or Christian, or if they have a specific name. People are targeted because of their ethnicity or their background. Oppression against women comes in the statements of the new government, claiming that women are not viable for some roles because of their physiological and bodily functions, they are not equipped to lead. In the government, there already exists a separation of women and men, so there are offices that are specifically for women and offices that are specifically for men. More recently there are recommendations for women to wear the headscarf or niqab. Officially there was already a ruling that women should not wear a bikini, but instead a burkini, which covers everything if they want to swim in public.

The struggle continues, of course. It is very important that this gets challenged. There were already some trials of sending different groups to find a political solution, or to find any room for discussion. The goal is to achieve a Syria that is democratic, that is not following one religion or one specific ethnicity, and a constitution that protects women and democracy. Unfortunately, there are still today many different regions where women are facing so much violence, sexualized violence as well. The situation is dire and needs a solution.

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Part 2: Discussion

GEORGETTE: It’s been 14 years. Every day there’s a new story, and it’s impossible to talk about all of it. 

GUEST: There was now this big women’s conference in Syria. Do you have any updates? Do you know how it went? What comes out of it? How do you feel about it? What’s the impact on the future?

JIYAN: It was a conference for the women of Syria which was brought out by the two organizations. Many women attended, but unfortunately not every woman who wanted to join could join in person. A lot of the women joined via Zoom. The goal was to start the conversation around a democratic Syria where women’s roles are protected. 

GUEST: And it was like more than 700 women, right?

JIYAN: There were lots of women who were able to come from different regions of Syria to the northeast. But more and more women couldn’t come because of the political situation or their specific situation. Some couldn’t travel although they were invited. But some of them could then attend on Zoom. The important and impressive thing that happened at this conference was that every woman was able to dress in her traditional dress and deliver her message in her language. That was very special. 

GEORGETTE: This conference was in the northeast region, but there was also an attempt to organize another conference for all the Syrian women in Damascus. They were organizing it for more than three months. Everything was ready, and the only thing that was missing was the approval. Unfortunately, that approval was never given. So there was no conference to bring all the women together from Syria in Damascus. 

GUEST: So who organized the conference? Did you organize? 

JIYAN: It was two different organizations, the Zenobia Women’s Association as well as Kongra Star.

GUEST: The women coming from their organizations and societies gave their messages, but what was the message in general altogether at the end? And what do you think about it right now?

JIYAN: This conference had lots of outcomes. The most important ones to mention now are that women need to participate in the political process, women need to participate socially, and women need to have protections in the constitution. 

GUEST: How are the chances with the new government these outcomes will be put into place? Is this going to happen easily, or will you have resistance from the state?

JIYAN: Under this government, with its specific mentality, there’s not much of a chance. These demands are given with international pressure as well as pressure from women organizations. As it stands now, where the mentality of the new government is for one language, one religion, and one specific type of Syrian, it’s not possible. The goal is to get enough international support to get to a place where Syria is for all and where there is openness to these demands.

GEORGETTE: The demands also grow past this co-chair between women and men. The demands are for protecting the rights of all the people who live in Syria, whether women or not, as well as people of different ethnicities and their identities. Remember the example about people’s names and what names you can give to your children. Many regions in Syria had different names, Kurdish names and Assyrian names, but they were all Arabized. The identity is being erased. So part of the demands are to protect this identity, that these rights are protected by the constitution. And part of this visit of the delegation is to share the story, to bring attention to these nuances. To strive for more of a union among all different women, to strive for the rights of women around the world, not only in Rojava and across Syria, but across different nations. 

MIZGIN: I think also one very important point of gathering women from different parts of Syria and making a conference like this on the level of the whole of Syria was to unify the voice of women of Syria. Because we see, as women in North and East Syria, that we achieved women’s rights or women’s laws. We achieved change, even if we didn’t eliminate patriarchy. We achieved something also in society. 

It was through women’s organizing that women were coordinated together, and this is important for the whole of Syria. This is something the women in North and East Syria understand: that they could achieve this just because they were organized with each other. The women were organized strongly, even if they are from very different organizations with different mindsets. Our organizations are not all the same, we have points where we discuss and argue, but we know that we have to be organized, and that this is important for Syria. Women getting organized in the whole of Syria is important, as the women are strengthened. 

This is more important than pressure from politics, I think, because politicians have different interests. We see now that they are supporting Al-Jolani, because he is better than Assad – he doesn’t have to be good, he is just better, so they are supporting him now. We see that he gets recognized internationally, whereas we as women are not. In North and East Syria, we can’t wait for different states or international forces to do something or to achieve something for us. This didn’t happen in the revolution in Rojava. At no point did we wait for international forces to support what we are achieving in society. 

It is something women in North and East Syria, as well as the different organizations who are now represented by the delegation, are trying to do: organize women throughout Syria. We discussed a little bit before about the fact that there were no big organizations or movements or institutions in Syria under the Assad regime. Before there were no women’s organizations, but now the women have the space to organize, so what we achieved in North and East Syria is an opportunity for the whole of Syria.

GUEST: I am interested in how women managed to gain such a huge influence in a relatively patriarchal society, and how they managed to maintain that influence over the long term. I assume that it took a lot of work, but that there may also have been resistance. It sounds as if this influence has been relatively sustainable for over ten years now, and I am interested in what this is based on.

JIYAN: Of course in Syria – like all the rest of the world – we do live under patriarchy, and Syria is a part of that. We do have these strong traditions that are patriarchal, and so changing the role of the woman or changing the mentality around women’s role in society has been of course a challenge. The answer was always that to change the woman’s role in the society, you need to re-educate everyone, not only the woman. So you need to start basically, educating the men and the children. The patriarchal role was enforced on the woman for ages, so you need to reinforce the new role on the men as well. 

If you want to create a democratic society – if you want to create a democratic space for women – then everyone in all parts of society needs to be involved. To change this mentality that’s been there for thousands of years was not an easy thing. But when the women were realizing their own potential, when they were put in the situation where they had to fight, to release all of their internal strength, they were forced to know their strength. With that, their family was also forced to see and recognize their strength. It started from each woman and her family, and then grew more and more into the society. 

Of course it’s not something that is done once and it’s over. It’s something that has brought so many different challenges and so many different struggles. Every day there are still these struggles with patriarchy, and it’s not something that we got rid of at any point or super quickly. But now the personal freedom and autonomy of women is so normalized that it’s not talked about or argued about anymore. A lot of changes are still needed, but it’s a step-by-step process that starts with visiting family houses, doing workshops and trainings, having conversations with different women and their families. Building on discussions in private and public events.

GEORGETTE: The challenge with patriarchy is that it doesn’t only exist in the minds of men. It also is internalized by the women, and that is an added challenge. Because women were always put into this box, one of the long-lasting results of the patriarchy is the belief existing in women’s minds that women have specific capacities, specific abilities and specific jobs.

The challenge of changing the mindset of the woman starts in school. We all learned in school that the father goes to work and the mother cooks, or dad reads and mom cooks. To change the mindset, they changed the curriculum. It is important to remove that mindset before children grow up. Also, there was a new rule in Rojava that all schools are mixed, so there are no more sex-segregated schools. In the rest of Syria, most of the schools are either a girl’s school or a boy’s school, but now all the schools in Rojava including the university – because there’s also now the Rojava University – are all mixed. There is no separation of sexes within schools at any point. 

TRANSLATOR: In addition, there is of course the rule in the social contract of co-chair, so that in every role there is a co-ownership of 50-50. 

GEORGETTE: No, it’s not 50-50. It’s not less than 50. So it could be 70. In education, actually, the women’s percentage is 90%. 

MIZGIN: Many more female teachers. 

JIYAN: Have you heard of Jineoloji?

AUDIENCE: Please tell us!

MIZGIN: Jineoloji is a concept proposed by Abdullah Öcalan in 2008. Jineoloji translates as the science of women. I know there are also gender studies with a wealth of experience from various feminist organizations. Many people compare it to gender studies but it’s different. Jineoloji is about approaching science from a new perspective, from a woman’s perspective, and not just in the social sphere, but in many different scientific fields, also from a woman’s perspective. Jineoloji is also taught at the university in Rojava.

There are seminars for teachers who are trained to raise awareness among children in the classroom. There are also Jineoloji lessons, which I believe start in fifth grade, where children are introduced to the subject in order to advance this change in mentality in society. And with Jineoloji, it is important to maintain contact with society—even if it is academic and scientific in nature—and not be so detached from society, as is the case with gender studies, for example, which is also academic and relatively removed from social reality.

Jineoloji is about bringing this women’s science or science from a female perspective into society. And there are many different projects on this topic, there are various committees and research groups in Europe too. I don’t know if there is anything in Berlin, but there are research groups on this topic everywhere. The first Jineoloji committees consisted of women—so when it started, the first time we talked about Jineoloji, what we were doing—there were women from all kinds of backgrounds, of all ages, so it wasn’t about whether someone had studied or not, there were also illiterate women or women who had never gone to school who came together and discussed what Jineoloji could become. So it started around 2009, 2010, and by now it is also being taught at the university in Rojava, so that is also one of the achievements of the Kurdish women’s movement. And in Rojava, there was the opportunity to deepen this further and spread it on another level.

GUEST: I hope that the Kurdish women’s movement doesn’t suffer the same fate as gender studies, which has become so detached from reality. It wasn’t always like that. Women’s studies came out of practical experience, out of activism in the 1980s, and then unfortunately it was replaced, forcibly, by gender studies, which is completely detached and only exists at university level. And that’s what Jineoloji sounds like now. So I really hope for you, or for all of us, that the connection to practical experience remains and doesn’t become like it is for us today. It shouldn’t develop like it has for us.

GUEST: One more question, it’s about Nefertiti. Someone said that she was Kurdish. Is this true?

JIYAN: Yes, she is Kurdish. 

GUEST: But that’s so long ago.

JIYAN: If you go back in time long enough, lots of people were Kurdish in all of the Mesopotamia region. 

TRANSLATOR: They would love to hear about your group and to know what you’re working on, or what could we all work on together, what topics could be common to work on together and how to co-organize together? 

GUEST: All of the women here are not in the central group. A few of the central women are here, but most of the women here today are friends, or they heard about this opportunity to listen and learn, and it’s quite free in the way that we’ve come here tonight.

GUEST: We’re a small radical feminist collective. We organize discussion meetings, we organize social gatherings for women that are a little easier to get into if you haven’t read a bunch of theory yet, or don’t come at it from an academic or very informed perspective. We try to get women together, we host talks or presentations here, specifically in Begine, that are women-only and are on any topic that a woman is willing to present and that is related to feminism in some way. So, the goal is similar to what I understand the goal of the movement is: that we try to get women to come together and talk with each other about what is going on with women in our lives. 

GUEST: I go on a little bit, because I think I’m someone who knows Jineoloji the longest. I can say that the ones who are here as radical feminists, for example, a lot of us think quite in parallel with Jineoloji. The basic thing is that we try to still put women in the center of our politics and our understanding of life. In these Western democracies or Western countries, there is formal equality. We believe that it doesn’t equate to real egalitarianism, where women and men really live in an egalitarian society. The reason why we gather is to try to see the things most people don’t want to see so much, about the exploitation of women in this relatively less patriarchal, or let’s say, different patriarchal setup. We want to figure it out and talk to other women about it, to make it known. Sometimes we also make some campaigns or demos according to the situation. 

GUEST: I think many of the topics are similar, but also different in the Western countries. I think what connects us all is the struggle to liberate women, as in ensure that women can live in freedom and safety and dignity. In the Western countries, feminists have achieved this equality in law, so there are not so many restrictions put on women here through law or rituals or all of this. So what we are left with here is the control of women through, I don’t want to say only, but mostly the mindset of the society. Which means through values and education and socialization, how you should be.

We are left with a patriarchy that is invisible for many women, and that makes it very very difficult to combat it. It makes it very difficult to achieve a consciousness among women. And since in the West, men among themselves had a big sexual revolution, we now are faced with the pure aggression and unlimitedness of male sexuality. So we struggle with pornography, with prostitution. It is the unleashed male sexuality that is put upon women here and girls since they are born. I don’t know if the others would agree, but I would say that as radical feminists we deal a lot with sexual exploitation, reproductive exploitation. Many feminists don’t deal with this so much, but I would say it’s what radical feminists really put their focus on.

GUEST: How do you observe the patriarchy in the West?

GEORGETTE: We didn’t deal with any men yet. Like here, in this facility as a delegation. That’s a joke. (laughter) These last few days, we didn’t deal with any men directly while traveling for conferences across Europe, which is great. But in general, we have visited lots of different conferences, like one in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region last year and one in Tunisia recently. These more international conferences were surprising.

Coming from the Middle East, there’s always this kind of view or advertisements that western women have reached their freedoms. Like: they have gotten their civil rights and constitutional rights, and they have achieved equality. But of course when they went to these conferences, they were really surprised that women on stage are still asking for their rights. Especially regarding objectification and sexual exploitation. The most surprising was that the women would still demand their rights for equality of work, because even in our region, even in like the old constitution in Syria, there was always an equality of work between women and men. It was surprising that Western women are still fighting for that now. There was also so much discussion about different exploitations, economic and capitalist exploitation. To a certain extent, they felt like, oh shit, maybe we actually do have rights. 

She paid extra close attention to family law and how much discrimination there is for women in topics like inheritance, divorce and financial separation. In all of Syria, men would never take 50% of women’s property, but here this happens. It’s surprising that the woman doesn’t have more rights with divorce and inheritance. 

GUEST: Yeah, it’s actually getting worse right now. The family law is getting worse. The women are losing custody of their children more and more. They tried so hard to make it equal on paper that it’s now open for judges to tilt it towards the men again. There’s no specific protection for women. There’s just vague protections for everyone, and then in the patriarchal society that means that no one’s protected.

GEORGETTE: The law in the region is clear that children under the age of 18 are always in the custody of the woman, and then at age 18 they can choose for themselves. In Syria, the general law was always that, with the topic of inheritance, the woman’s share is half of the man’s. So if there’s a brother and sister, for example, the guy gets whatever percent and the woman gets the half of his share. Now the new family law in Rojava specifically makes it equal, so it’s 50-50 for the son and the daughter to get equal shares of the inheritance.

GUEST: That’s good. Especially with the family law on custody that it’s always the woman. Here, a court can say that the husband or that the man was violent to the mother, and a different court will still give him custody or visitation rights and force her into contact with him. So we are not doing good. I am slightly jealous.

JIYAN: Kids need both their parents, but definitely they need their mom more, and that’s where the law comes in.

GUEST: I have a question about the situation in North East Syria. Do you have the feeling that the international support or acceptance for the autonomous region has changed in the past months?

JIYAN: There is acceptance, because the proof of the project is there, that it exists, that it’s successful. But there is no recognition at all internationally for this region. 

MIZGIN: There’s no change towards the approach of the autonomous administration. 

GUEST: They mentioned the continuous struggle. I’m curious, or maybe it’s too personal, but what keeps you going? Like, where do you find the strength to keep going all the time?

TRANSLATING JIYAN: I will not do justice to what she said, so I’m sorry for everyone. She said that everyone who struggles has one goal that they’re looking forward to in the end of the struggle, and this is what keeps them driving forward. For her personally, whenever any woman is being oppressed in the world, this is a direct oppression to her. There is no freedom for anyone if not all of us are free. For her, the journey will never stop as long as there is a single woman oppressed. This is her personal goal that drives her.

There were so many women, young women, who are martyrs (Editor’s note: the word martyr is translated from the kurdish word ‘şehîd‘, which is used for those who gave their lives in the struggle for the liberation of society). Every time they resist, they keep these women in their memory. This is how they pay back these losses and these lives that were lost for the struggle. That is why they keep going. But she said it much better.

TRANSLATING GEORGETTE: I wish you can hear all of these words. Her struggle started personally, because she couldn’t use her own name, her identity. Every time she would say her name – it’s not something that is recognized, so it’s a very personal struggle. That struggle does not stop at being Assyrian. It does not stop at a certain region. It continues on and on. Wherever there is a woman struggling or is under violence or being oppressed, this touches her personally. 

The struggle was difficult through and through. They were always under threat of death. Their names were listed at checkpoints, they were wanted from the authorities. They always had the possibility of being detained, the possibility of being murdered. But at the same time, they were hand-in-hand with the Kurdish woman and the Assyrian woman and the Arab woman. That in itself gives you so much push to keep on going, to also free all the women. This is also a part of why she visits here: to understand the struggles of different women from different regions and how we can all reach our freedom together.

GUEST: What are the main issues that you are addressing at the moment for women’s rights?

MIZGIN: The women’s movements are struggling on a political level, but there’s also a lot of different work and different topics they’re working on. Underage marriage is an important topic, honor killings are an issue, polygamy is an issue. There is one level of political recognition, the laws, the Constitution. But the struggle is also in society, in changing the mindset.

GUEST: So these practices are still on the ground although the law is against it?

MIZGIN: I mean you have laws, you have constitutions. It’s better now than before. But you still didn’t eliminate patriarchy.

GUEST: You mean better than the Assad time?

MIZGIN: Yes, better than the Assad time, better than was before in the region. But it’s still an issue. You can change laws from one day to the other, but you can’t change the mindset. You need years, and you need a lot of work and a lot of struggle. This is something else the movement is still working on. Because of this we have Mala Jin, we have organizations like SARA who are working against feminicide and violence, and a lot of different kinds of organizations. I think it’s important to understand that law alone, or governmental rules, it’s not enough. They can take it away, but the mindset that you build up is difficult to take away from a woman who wants to be free or who knows her rights.

GUEST: Two of our feminist mothers or grandmothers have already left tonight, but as far as I know, there was this idea in the second wave, in the 70s, that it takes eight generations of women to really get the patriarchal structure out of the mind.

GUEST: The same with China. I come from China. In 1949, when the new China was established, the first law issued was family law. In that law, they gave women the right to divorce their husband. In the coming years, in the 1950s, in that decade, more than 300,000 women were killed by their family, by their husband’s family, for divorcing their husband. So it’s actually a revolution that has to be done by the women themselves. Law itself cannot be implemented unless they fight. 

GEORGETTE: They way the family law in the northeast region developed was from the ground up. It started from the different women’s organizations and associations. They first wrote a draft of the family law that was then distributed around all the different women’s organizations and women associations to review and make any corrections. Then the draft was distributed to all the people to read through it and understand it. Only then was it taken to the parliament. So it was not only the women but everyone who was informed about it and had the chance to read it. Then it was approved and taken into the law. The process was not at all top-down, it was exactly the opposite, it was bottom-up. When it was established and announced, everyone already had a hand in writing it or in at least accepting it.

MIZGIN: The family law isn’t implemented in Deir ez-Zur, for example, or in Raqqa or Tabqa, regions where mainly Arabs live and which were under ISIS rule for years, because the people don’t accept it. You can force laws, like against polygamy or underage marriage, but the people will still do what they are doing. You can punish all of them, but then you have people who are against your rules. So, for example, what the women’s association Zenubia is doing in the Arab region is educating the people, speaking and gathering communes and councils, and discussing the new law. They are trying to convince the people to accept the law, so that it can be implemented also there. If you don’t have the approval from the people, then you can make any law, but no one will follow it. So you have to change the mindset.

GUEST: How is it received normally when you try to do this, like, say, promote this new concept to the society? Would people be hostile to you?

MIZGIN: There are reactions, some negative reactions. In Islamic law, you have the right of marrying at least four women, and underage marriage is allowed, so there are hostilities. But still, you see that there’s change very slowly, also in the Cezîre region, where we both live. At the beginning, the people, especially the men, were attacking and reacting badly against the women’s houses, the Mala Jins, but now you see that the men also go to the Mala Jin for help with a problem in the family. They’re going to the Mala Jin to ask for advice, even though they’re a little bit afraid. Slowly, slowly there are changes. And slowly there is the understanding that it doesn’t mean that men have less rights than women, if women have more rights. 

Sometimes women also have bad reactions to the woman’s law. In Arab regions, it’s usual that a man marries several women, and then the women want to be the third wife, or the second wife, not the first one, because then you have more value if you’re the new one. So some women are okay with polygamy, if they’re not the first or second wife. They’re like, why are you against it, for me it’s okay. You have to work on giving them an understanding that it’s against their rights, and that they’re oppressing other women, like for example the first wife.

GUEST: In China we call it the first wife religion, meaning they are so proud of their status as the first wife, and they look down upon the third and the second wife. 

GUEST: We actually deal with a similar mindset issue around pornography and prostitution here, where a lot of women are actually not against it, or they try to convince themselves that it’s a good thing for women. It’s hard to actually have a conversation with them and try to find a commonality or a way to talk about it.

GUEST: And then they call it feminism.

GEORGETTE: The way we would do it is not to go and be against it. It’s more like to go again from the ground up, to educate first. Change the situation first and then the law. Again, how the family law started: from the ground up, by educating and doing seminars and whatnot, and then slowly to build the law. The law is basically the last step rather than the first. We do a lot of these local lectures on different topics in different neighborhoods where there are big gatherings of all the people in the neighborhood. And that also, of course, includes the men in the neighborhoods, not only the women. 

GUEST: I would suggest maybe one question from our side, one question from your side and then we finish.

JIYAN: From our side there is not any.

GUEST: Is homosexuality an issue, or is it not really a thing yet? 

GEORGETTE: The biggest struggle right now is about women’s rights and equality, so there is not much demand from the society regarding that. queer rights. But there is also not much oppression regarding that, so it’s not a big topic, but there is also nothing against it. If a person was to have the orientation, they would not face violence or exclusion. There are no big laws about it, but maybe in the future there will be more in that regard. 

GUEST: So there is nothing forbidden now?

GEORGETTE: No, it’s personal freedom.

GUEST: But that’s only for the autonomous region, not the whole of Syria?

GEORGETTE: I should know this better. Actually, in the law of Syria, there’s nothing for or against homosexuality. It’s not even mentioned. It’s not a topic in Syria nor in Rojava. But on the ground, it’s the social norms, right? That’s like always. But like by law, there’s no laws against trans people or homosexuals.

GUEST: But Islamic law?

TRANSLATOR: Syria is not technically under Islamic law, but that’s, again, technicalities. Instead of Islamic law, there is civil law, but that’s not societal law. Society runs on its own.

JIYAN: We brought for you a few brochures and information both in English and in German from different organizations and different initiatives that you might want to read more about. So if you want to take any…

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