Message from the Kurdish Women's Movement

Dear sisters:

We greet you from the free mountains of Kurdistan.

Today, although our struggles are geographically far apart, we know that our strength is united.

This March 8, we greet all the women of the world and Latin America.

Against hegemony, occupation and power, we create our own struggle, as Kurdish women, as Arab women, as women of Latin America.

Despite the fact that the mountains that separate us are high, we are close because together, as women, all distances are shortened.

We know that all women in the world who stand against power and domination by men are engaged in the same struggle and share a common goal.

On this March 8, a day of struggle for all in women around the world, an international strike has been declared.

We salute your refusal to work and from our resistance here in Afrin we say "Ni Una Menos! (Not one more woman! i.e. oppressed, murdered, discriminated against or oppressed—SD)

And to accomplish this goal, our resistance must be very great.

We say that women in the world are making history. We recognize that our history has the most profound roots because it is based on fighting against established power, domination, sexism and capitalism.

Today, all women are fighting against all this. And it is necessary to strengthen the fight against despotism, so that we are all free, living and organizing for a free world. This is why we need to make our struggle a universal struggle.

And following in the footsteps of Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, Berta Cáceres, as well as Sakine Cansiz, Avesta, Arin and Barin in Afrin, we can say today that in our history you, as women warriors represent the vanguard of all of us.

Today, Afrin represents a clear example of our struggle for freedom. This struggle represents a long history of resistance by the Kurdish women of Afrin.

The organization of life on all levels constitutes our history and depends on the organization of women.

Today the world functions only through the organization and the forces of women. Today, there is a terrible war, a third world war, which is mainly against women. This is why we must form a front against this great war.

We welcome all the campaigns of the world raised by this struggle of women. Your fight is our fight, because the enemy is the same.

Against the massacre of women, against feminicide, against colonialism, against established power, we declare the massive and universal women’s struggle.

The 21st century will be the century of liberation and women’s revolution around the world, because today given our diverse races, and with our values ​​and through our leadership, we as women want to invent and create a new world.

Capitalism, imperialism, colonial occupation, established powers, sexism, do not allow us to fulfill our goals; but through our struggle as women and the exercise of our free will we can create a new life.

Your struggle, as women, gives us inspiration and strength. At the same time, our struggle in Rojava represents huge social change in all the cities where Arab women, Armenian women, and Persian women (etc.), are organized. Through all these struggles we will find our way forward to a free society.

History began with women and the struggle of women can create a free world.

As Kurdish women, we owe our freedom and our development to our Leader Öcalan. Because he has fought heroically for our freedom.

Dear sisters, we say that our struggle for freedom becomes the victory for the freedom of all women, just as the 21st century will be the century of women.

In Rojava, in Kurdistan, in Afrin, we say "Ni Una Menos!" And this slogan is our first and most important call.

We salute you and your March 8 marches from the free mountains of Kurdistan.

Viva March 8! Jin Jiyan Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom!)

Fascism will fall, and women and humanity will win!

(Translated by Stephen Durham)