A conference on Yazidi women under the title “Freedom of Freedom of Shengal women is the freedom of humanity” is to be held today at between 16:00-17:30 at the UN. The conference is jointly organised by Women’s Peace Bureau (CENI), International Kurdish Women’s Movement (TJKE), Yazidi Kurdish Women’s Assembly Berivan and Femmes Solidaire.

Speaking about the conference, Canan Polat, a member of the organising committee, drew attention that femicide, which includes physical, mental and economical violence against women, is threatening and ignoring the lives, health and rights of billions of women today.

Polat stressed that femicide is today universally threatening women and a common struggle of women is necessary against it, and added that the conference at the UN is to carry the voice of the Yazidi Kurdish women abducted by ISIS gangs to the agenda of the United Nations and to contribute to the campaign launched by CENI under the slogan “Freedom of Shengal women is the freedom of humanity”.

Polat further drew attention to the fact that during the 90’s it was also women who were mostly killed in the massacres in conflict areas, adding that today this savagery is being continued by the ISIS gangs. Polat recalled that over 7 thousand Yazidi, Christian and Turkmen women and children were abducted by ISIS gangs after its attacks on Sinjar and that gangs used the children as suicide bombers in the war while selling the women in slavery markets in Mosul.

Polat went on saying that women have to get organised globally and form their own politics to create an alternative to the male dominant system, stressing that the power of women to create an alternative is perceived by the misogynistic organisations like Boko Haram and ISIS as a threat, which is why they are attacking the women carrying out a revolutionary struggle.

Polat added that they aim through the conference to create a possibility of an organisation of world women from different backgrounds, and waging a common struggle against femicide, murders and violence targeting women.

The panel will be moderated by Leyla Boran from Yazidi Kurdish Women’s Assembly.

The speakers are as follows:

Leyla Boran: Femicide in today’s reality; the methods and strategies of the struggle against femicide.

Barbara Spinelli, International Democratic Lawyers’ Association representative: The situation of immigrant women. What happened after Shengal and the true face of the violence against women and femicide.

Canan Polat, CENI representative: The stage reached by the campaign “Freedom of Shengal women is the freedom of humanity”, methods and strategies to be pursued in a common struggle to rescue the Yazidi women; a call for the campaign.