by KATHAMBI KINOTI
The Kurdish ethnic group historically inhabited Kurdistan, an area now divided between the modern states of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Kurds form about 20% of Turkey’s population. Since the formation of the state of Turkey, Kurds in Turkey have faced marginalization and suppression of their cultural identity and a very severe assimilation policy. In 1984 the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) launched an armed uprising against the Turkish state demanding an independent Kurdish homeland. Thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the conflict that followed. From time to time, there has been a lull in the fighting, but to date there has been no final resolution to the conflict. [i]
AWID asked two Kurdish women about the unique challenges that Kurdish women face in securing equality rights as part of a marginalized group. Dr. Handan Ça?layan[ii] is an independent researcher and writer while Nurcan Baysal[iii] is an activist working on rural development.
Turkish women face several barriers to full equality but the situation of Kurdish women is exacerbated by prejudice against their ethnic and linguistic identity. Ça?layan attributes the discrimination that Turkish women face to patriarchy in private and public spaces. Women have heavier workloads at home and this is a barrier to their participation in work outside the home. They are also marginalized socially and politically. “Capitalism benefits from patriarchal control over women,” says Ça?layan. “Women are marginalized in the production process, and their employment is increasingly informalized.” She adds that for Kurdish women, armed conflict, village evacuations and forced migration further impoverish women and expose them to human rights violations.
Women Living Under Muslim Laws for more