Geneva Institute for Coexistence
Non-governmental Organization
Minority Forum 2021
United Nations—Geneva
Minority Forum 2021
Monsieur de Varennes,
I could very well recount the suffering suffered by Kurds in the Near East and those in the
Diaspora to underline the fact that they demand protection at the Minority Forum.
However, I would rather draw your attention to women, from minority backgrounds, and I
will focus more specifically on Kurdish women.
Women suffer from war with the consequences that you all know. But for them, war can take
an additional form of domination.
Kurdish women suffer twofold!
First, because they are part of a minority as a whole, without state rights that protect
them and also suffer the instrumentalization and abandonment of their own minority.
In 2019, the Turkish army was able to invade Serê Kanîyê because the US suddenly
withdrew. This withdrawal will have forced more than 400,000 people to quickly leave the
country, making them displaced, becoming a new minority.
Second, Kurdish women suffer simply for being a woman.
Barin Kobanê, whose real name is Amina Omar, was killed in 2018. The Guardian, the BBC
and Women's Kurdistan have written about this woman, but there are many others like
her.
Women, who we see on the internet, naked on the ground! Both breasts cut off.
Humiliating photos, where genital mutilation is recognized as being used as a weapon of
war by the Turkish military. Intrinsic symbol of triple domination: military, ethnic and
masculine.
In Afrin, the UN Commission of Inquiry determined that women were raped to shame
them and discourage them from taking part in political debate, but also that these
women were questioned about their ethnicity and their beliefs!
Do political differences justify such actions?