Solidarity message for the women of Kurdistan, and for women’s movements everywhere struggling against femicide, in defense of free women and society, on 8th March, 2021.

Today, we wish to send a message of strength, courage, solidarity and hope to all our sisters, and especially to all Kurdish women political prisoners currently on hunger strike in Turkish prisons.

The Kurdish Women’s Movement provides inspiration to women’s movements all over Europe, and for us in England, Wales and Scotland, as an example of collective women’s struggle. Your dignified and strong response to the actions of the Turkish State is inspirational, is gaining increasing support in the national news and in the British Parliament, as well as amongst ordinary people who care about creating a better world and peace in Kurdistan. We salute all the women who demand freedom and who resist in the prison of darkness, such as Laila Guven, Zainab Jalalian and many others.

As feminists, we know that struggle involves work and it involves love. It is militant just as much as it is joyful. Whether we look to you, our sisters and comrades who have been imprisoned by the Turkish state, to the women fighting in the mountains of Kurdistan, or the women building new ways of life across society in all four parts of Kurdistan, we see this same love and dedication in their actions.

We also see this love for struggle in the victories of the Irish, Argentinian and Polish feminists fighting for reproductive justice. We see it in the anti-racist and decolonial struggles across the world, from the Zapatistas to Black Lives Matter.
On International Women’s Day, together with our sisters of the Kurdish Women’s Movement and all free women, we will take to the streets. 

We join your call to continue the struggle, to stand side by side as free women and raise our voices, to oppose all forms of injustice and fascism, to strive for building a society where justice and equality prevail and where the rights and dignity of women are respected.

We call for unity and solidarity, against feminicide and in defence of a free life and free society everywhere. United we will overcome. We salute you and wish you peace and strength.

Jin! Jiyan! Azadi!