The Free Women's Movement (Tevgera Jinên Azad-TJA) made a statement in Wan (Van) on the anniversary of the Taliban's regaining power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021 and gave a message of struggle together with Afghan women. A large number of women attended the statement in front of the Wan Provincial Organization of the Peoples' Equality and Democratic Party (DEM Party). Speaking at the statement, DEM Party Rêyâ Armûşê (İpekyolu) District Co-Chair Şevin Polat called for raising women's struggle.

  

Polat said that even though geographies change, the misogynist policies of the male-dominated regime do not change, and emphasized that women are increasing their struggle against this in every dimension. Polat said: “Afghan women and girls have been impoverished by the direct intervention of male-dominated nation states for decades. They have been confronted with war, systematic violence, hunger and closure. The anti-women's freedom regime, which the Taliban regime has been de facto running since the 90s, became more institutionalized with the declaration of Sharia. Its first target was, of course, women and girls who would pioneer social freedom and organization.”

 

'WOMEN AND CHILDREN EXCLUDED FROM PUBLIC SPHERE'  

 

Stating that women and girls in Afghanistan were made to wear burqas and withdrawn from education areas, “It prevented girls from getting education and women from participating in politics and accessing health services. It banned public space. Women were stoned to death for not behaving in accordance with Sharia law, while girls who wanted to go to school were burned with burning with caustic soda. The male-dominated powers not only watched but also fed this dark regime. The best response to the dark regimes nurtured by the male-dominated nation-states that ignore and usurp our most basic rights and want to imprison us in the cages they have built is, of course, to put on courage, resistance and women's consciousness. We know that no struggle that women do not touch, that their voices do not reach, can move forward and result in revolution” Polat said. 

 

CALL TO RAISE ORGANIZED STRUGGLE

 

Polat called for increasing the organized struggle and said: “Our most fundamental responsibility towards the revolutionary women from whom we inherited the legacy of resistance from Clara Zetkin to Meena Keshwar Kamal, from Sara's to Arin Mîrxan, from Hevrîn Xelef to Evîn Goyî is to increase our organization and raise the spirit of women's struggle spreading from Afghanistan to Kurdistan. As TJA, we defend and embrace the freedom struggle of the women of Afghanistan, whose will is wanted to be usurped, for more than 40 years and we want it to be known that we are fed from the same root. Despite the borders imposed by nation-state fascism, we will continue to stand side by side and say 'Jin, jiyan, azadî (Woman, life, freedom)' together wherever our voices reach and our breath is enough.”  

 

The statement ended with the slogans “Jin, jiyan, azadî”, “Women Life Freedom” and applause.