The World Celebrated Kurdish Women’s Fight Against ISIS. Now It’s Silent as They’re Raped and Tortured.

A recent UN report revealed an increase in sexual violence against women and girls since the Turkish military operation began in the Kurdish enclave a year ago. Some Kurds say their current lives are no better than when ISIS was running amok.

A recent UN report revealed an increase in sexual violence against women and girls since the Turkish military operation began in the Kurdish enclave a year ago. Some Kurds say their current lives are no better than when ISIS was running amok. The report documented that at least 30 women in the Kurdish town of Tal Abyad [now under control of the jihadi militias backed by Turkey] had reportedly been raped in February alone. 

Officials in the Kurdish Rojava enclave in northern Syria, all told Haaretz that Turkey is systematically targeting women activists and politicians who have been at the forefront of political organization there, using the justification that it’s “neutralizing terrorists.” Many of the female victims have also reportedly been mutilated with photos of their bodies displayed on social media.

The perpetrators are not Turkish soldiers, explains Prof. Dror Zeevi from Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva. Rather, they’re “jihadists who slowly transformed into mercenaries” at the service of Turkey, he claims. Given the prominence of Kurdish women not only as politicians but as fighters, “the jihadists hate what they represent – and this is a type of payback or vengeance,” adds Zeevi, referring to the use of sexual violence.

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