Rabia Êto/JINHA

KOBANÊ – Women in Rojava’s YPJ described the force as the beginning of freedom for women whose spaces are occupied by men at every turn.

Members of Rojava’s YPJ forces showed women around the world new possibilities when they led a resistance against months of Daesh attacks on the city of Kobanê. YPJ fighters spoke with JINHA about their own struggle and the changes it has brought in their lives.

“We thought that freedom meant for women to dress as they like, to be able to do their makeup, to go outside without asking for permission,” said YPJ fighter Havîn Botan.
“Most women see freedom this way.” Havîn said that women are being deceived by this “false freedom.

“Women need to struggle for society’s freedom and their own,” said Havîn. “The current situation is tied to the freedom of this land and country. If there’s a country taken prisoner anywhere, neither women nor that society are free.”

Havîn said that after joining the YPJ, the military and ideological training she went through changed her significantly.“Now I believe in my own strength, my own identity,” she said. “I can comfortably say that I saw and got to know my own reality.”

Bêrîtan Botan comes from Siirt, Turkey. Before the YPJ, she said, she was in “the system’s schools.” To support her struggling family, she quit school and started working. After several months, her brother stopped allowing her to work and she remained trapped in the home.

“So because of this, I wasn’t doing well,” said Bêrîtan. When the war began in Kobanê, three of Bêrîtan’s friends left to join the resistance as members of the YPJ. All three died. Bêrîtan was deeply moved by this and joined the YPJ in search of the freedom she had never found. She says that now, her struggle for liberation grows every day.
Fighter Sorxwîn Cudî said that many of her friends in the YPJ introduced her to the meaning of an ethical, self-sacrificing life.
“I want to address the women sitting at home,” said Sorxwîn. “Go out and see how big the world is and how sweet freedom tastes. For thousands of years, those in power have been surrounding women, occupying their living spaces, but thanks to the struggle, women are advancing on this path to freedom.
“Freedom’s address is the YPJ,” she said.

(du/mg/cm)