s\N, y fit HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Forum on Minority Issues Geneva, 28 — 30 November 2011 YAM e.V. Kurdish Centre for Legal Studies and Consultancy Madam Chair, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen, Kurdiscbes Zentrum ftir juristische Studien and Beratungen Madam President, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on the situation of the Kurdish woman in Syria. My name is Mohammad Miro Hasyniani. I am from YASA, the Kurdish Centre for Legal Navenda kurdi ji bo lekorin CI rawejkariya yasayi Studies and Consultancy. Our organization advocates the rights of the estimated three million Kurds in Syria. j a114.).js.1135i.. .1i ;4;111i Although women played influential and important leadership roles in YASA e.V. Postfach 7624 53076 Bonn decision-making positions throughout history, their participation was neither recognized nor rewarded. And as a result, they have suffered discrimination in male-dominated society. Moreover, women's oppression is www.yasa-online.org primarily aninstitu- tionalized reality in which they undergo various social conditions within patriarchy. Like other oppressed women in the world, Syrian women experience various Rums of oppression based on gender and social status in their traditional patriarchal society. In Syria, where the current situation is deplorable because of the government's brutal, crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, women and children are more susceptible to violence. Under Syrian laws (article 548-192) women are deprived of their basic and social rights because the state and its legal system legitimate patriarchal control of women. For example, men in Syria get lenient treatment under the law, which allows for reduced punishments for honour killings. Although the Syrian government ratified the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, it has some reservations about the rights of Syrian women to pass on their citizenship to their children. Therefore, Syrian women cannot change their status quo and eradicate all forms of discrimination embedded in the structure of society. In addition to all these forms of oppression inflicted on Syrian women, Kurdish women in Syria are subject to double discrimination because of their gender and ethnicity. Like all Kurds in Syria, Kurdish women have been deprived of the basic human rights, especially political, cultural, and civil rights. Consequently, Kurdish women in Syria have been marginalized by the Syrian government which pursues discriminatory policies against Kurds. These repressive policies began in 1962 when more than 150,000 Kurds were stripped of the Syrian nationality. Syr-