Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and Women’s Alliance in cooperation with Roj Women Association and Roj Women Assembly are pleased to announce the following event
“Free women are the basis of a free society”
Women in Rojava: Witnessing a revolution of our times
Saturday, 7 May 2016, 3-6pm
SOAS Brunei Gallery Building, Room B104
Speakers include Rahila Gupta freelance journalist and writer
Ali Kanea journalist and activist and Rohash Shexo UK Representative of Kongra Star (Star Congress) of Rojava.
Chaired by Roj Women Association
We would like to invite you to an in-depth discussion led by Rahila Gupta and Ali Kanea, sparked by their recent visit to Rojava on the invitation by the Foundation for the Free Women of Rojava (WAJR), to celebrate the International Women’s Day 2016 in solidarity with the Kurdish women’s struggle and to support the construction of a free society. Joining them will be the Rohash, the new UK organisation in the Middle East founded on a feminist perspective, representative of Kongra Star (Star Congress) of Rojava.
The meeting provides an opportunity to learn what the women’s revolution in Rojava stands for: autonomous women’s organisation in all fields of life, the construction of democratic autonomy in Rojava and a system which defends the principle “women’s rights are men’s rights” throughout society.
ROJAVA IN BRIEF
In the summer of 2012 the predominantly Kurdish people of Northern Syria, during the Syrian civil war, managed to drive the government troops of the Ba’ath Party of President Assad out of their territory to form a self-governed region: the autonomous democracy of Rojava. Since then, Rojava has been built as an economic model for a democratic, ecologically based and gender equal liberated self-government, which stands as a model for the entire Middle East, providing new hope throughout the world, and reviving international solidarity.
At the centre of Rojava society is the democratic basis of self-government. The explicit foundations of this self-government is the free development and equal legal status of all individuals and ethnic groups, the liberation and equality of women, ecological sustainability and the collective construction of the structures of solidarity.
Women and women’s groups are organised into autonomous councils at the level of local councils, as well as those of cities and cantons. Women form and are active in the construction of society in Rojava, and this brings a women’s perspective to bear on all aspects of life. In Rojava, women are autonomously organised in every field, from the local councils to the presidency of the cantons, from city government to the security forces, and they enjoy equal representation.
The women’s self-defence units of the YPJ, founded in 2013, play a special role in the fight against IS and for the defence of the construction of a democratic society.
The goal of Kongra Star (Star Congress) is the free existence of all ethnic and religious groups in a democratic, ecological and gender equal society. The women’s movement actively struggles for a free society against patriarchal structures and mentalities.
For information contact:
Yasemine: ROJ WOMEN rojwomen@googlemail.com
Estella or Mel: estella24@tiscali.co.uk
Peace in Kurdistan
Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question
Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk
www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.com
Contacts Estella Schmid 020 7586 5892 & Melanie Gingell – Tel: 020 7272 7890
Patrons: Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford, Jill Evans MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Hywel Williams MP, Kate Osamor MP, Elfyn Llwyd, Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy, John Austin, Christine Blower, NUT General Secretary, Bruce Kent, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, John Berger, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Prof Mary Davis, Dr Thomas Jeffrey Miley, Mark Thomas, Nick Hildyard, Stephen Smellie, Derek Wall, Melanie Gingell