NÎSAN JÎNDA

Shengal- The members of the Shengal Young Women's Union (Kurdish: Yekîtiya Jinên Ciwan ên Şengalê) consisting of Yazidi, Turkmen, Arab young women in Shengal, are working to hold their first congress in June. Before holding the congress, they have been holding meetings in neighborhoods, villages, and towns of Shengal to discuss many topics such as child marriage, femicide, suicide among women, labor-economy, preservation of their culture, and identity. We attended a meeting held by these young women in the Sinunê town of Shengal and spoke to them. The women shared both their excitement and their ideas about the future with us.

“We will strengthen our struggle against child marriage”

One of the agendas of the meetings is child marriage. While young women underline that child marriage is an issue that needs to be struggled against, they emphasize that the ongoing attacks in the region also cause the increase in child marriage. “If we organize and struggle more, we can end child marriage,” they said, “Surviving as a nation against all the genocides for centuries, our aim is to end this phenomenon by raising awareness in society.”

Solution-oriented discussions

“We, as young women, can actually bring an end to reaction and all kinds of bigotry. We should discuss the ways to solve the problems we have faced. In fact, we already live face to face with our problems every day and we should carry out solution-oriented discussions. Surely, being face to face with problems does not mean that we know them very well, we will continue to discuss these issues during our congress,” Înas Elyas, one of the members of the union, told NuJINHA.

Şilan Şengalî, another member of the Shengal Young Women's Union, told us that they expect all young women in Shengal to attend their congress, “Women are stronger together,” she said.