Houzan Mahmoud | |
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 Houzan Mahmoud in Paris | |
| Born | Kurdistan |
| Nationality | Kurdish |
Houzan Mahmoud (born 1973) is a Kurdish feminist, writer and anti-war activist born in South Kurdistan. She was one of the speakers at the anti-war rally in March 2003 in London [1] and is the co-founder of the Culture Project, a platform for Kurdish feminists, writers and activists. [1]
Mahmoud grew up under the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and her earliest memories were of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980–88. "From the day I was born, all the way to this moment, all I have witnessed is war, a never ending war in Iraq", she has said. She started reading feminist literature, which inspired her activism against patriarchal violence, in particular honour killings, female genital mutilation, and forced marriages. [2] [3]
Mahmoud received an MA in Gender Studies from SOAS. She has also worked as a representative of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq. [4] [5]
Mahmoud has led many international campaigns in defence of women's rights among them campaigns against Sharia law in Iraq and Kurdistan.. Her articles have been published in The Guardian and The Independent .[ citation needed ] She is the editor of Kurdish Women's Stories, an anthology of women's autobiographical writings from across the regions of Kurdistan. [6] The accounts took two years to gather, though the work of Culture Project and features women from the ages of twenty to seventy, including activist Lanja Khawe. [6]
Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan refers to the Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of "Kurdistan" in West Asia, which also includes parts of southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, and northwestern Iran. Much of the geographical and cultural region of Iraqi Kurdistan is part of the Kurdistan Region (KRI), an autonomous region recognized by the Constitution of Iraq. As with the rest of Kurdistan, and unlike most of the rest of Iraq, the region is inland and mountainous.
The Jews of Kurdistan are the Mizrahi Jewish communities from the geographic region of Kurdistan, roughly covering parts of northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey. Kurdish Jews lived as closed ethnic communities until they were expelled from Arab and Muslim states from the 1940s–1950s onward. The community largely spoke Judeo-Aramaic. As Kurdish Jews natively adhere to Judaism and originate from the Middle East, Mizrahi Hebrew is used for liturgy. Many Kurdish Jews, especially the ones who hail from Iraq, went through a Sephardic Jewish blending during the 18th century.
Kurdish women have traditionally played important roles in Kurdish society and politics. In general, Kurdish women's rights and equality have improved dramatically in the 21st century due to progressive movements within Kurdish society. However, despite the progress, Kurdish and international women's rights organizations still report problems related to gender inequality, forced marriages, honor killings, and in Iraqi Kurdistan, female genital mutilation (FGM).
Nazand Begikhani is a contemporary Kurdish/British writer, poet and leading academic researcher into gender based violence, and an active advocate of human rights. She is an honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, Centre for Gender and Violence Research and has been awarded the Vincent Wright Chair 2019/2020 and works as a visiting professor at Sciences Po School for International Affairs, Paris.
Kurdish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which asserts that Kurds are a nation and espouses the creation of an independent Kurdistan from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi writer, painter, and political activist, known for her novel Women on a Journey: Between Baghdad and London about political repression, violence and exile. She has written both novels and short stories as well as nonfiction, mainly about current political events relating to Iraq, Palestine or Tunisia.
Dashni Morad is a Kurdish singer, songwriter, television presenter, human rights & environmental activist. Born in Kurdistan, she moved to Holland as a refugee with her family in 1997. She rose to prominence in 2005 through her television show, "Bê Kontrol", which was the first of its kind in the Kurdistan Region to explore pop culture and related aspects of contemporary Western culture candidly. Many people in the Kurdistan Region, particularly the youth, consider Dashni to have broken down cultural and traditional barriers for young women.
The status of women in Iraq at the beginning of the 21st century is affected by many factors: wars, sectarian religious debates concerning Islamic law and Iraq's Constitution, cultural traditions, and modern secularism. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women are widowed as a result of a series of wars and internal conflicts. Women's rights organizations struggle against harassment and intimidation, while they work to promote improvements to women's status in the law, in education, the workplace, and many other spheres of Iraqi life, and to curtail abusive practices such as honor killings and forced marriages.
The Women's Protection Units or Women's Defense Units is an all-female militia involved in the Syrian civil war. The YPJ is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the armed forces of Rojava, and is closely affiliated with the male-led YPG. While the YPJ is mainly made up of Kurds, it also includes women from other ethnic groups in Northern Syria.
Anti-Kurdish sentiment, also known as anti-Kurdism or Kurdophobia, is hostility, fear, intolerance or racism against the Kurdish people, Kurdistan, Kurdish culture, or Kurdish languages. A person who holds such positions is sometimes referred to as a "Kurdophobe".
Six Days: Three Activists, Three Wars, One Dream is a documentary film by director Nikolina Gillgren, which follows three human rights activists in Liberia, Iraq and Georgia over six days. It provides insight into the everyday struggle of making women's lives better, worldwide.
Democratic confederalism, also known as Kurdish communalism or Apoism, is a political concept theorized by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan about a system of democratic self-organization with the features of a confederation based on the principles of autonomy, direct democracy, political ecology, feminism, multiculturalism, self-defense, self-governance and elements of a cooperative economy. Influenced by social ecology, libertarian municipalism, Middle Eastern history and general state theory, Öcalan presents the concept as a political solution to Kurdish national aspirations, as well as other fundamental problems in countries in the region deeply rooted in class society, and as a route to freedom and democratization for people around the world.
Asya Abdullah is a Kurdish politician working to establish democratic autonomy in Rojava, Northern Syria. Asya Abdullah is the current co-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the former co-chair of the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) coalition, and serves as a senior permanent member of the Syrian Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), serving in its upper administrative body. She has presented at numerous conferences to reach out to activists, academics and world leaders to garner support for the Kurdish political project in Rojava.
Khanim Rahim Latif ,(born in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq) is a liberal human and women’s rights activist in Iraqi Kurdistan who seeks to defend equality and offer women a refuge from gender-based violence.
Ala Talabani is a Kurdish politician and head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan bloc in the Iraqi parliament. She is a three-time member of the Council of Representatives of Iraq.
Besê Hozat is a leader in the Kurdistan Workers' Party and is the co-chair of the Kurdistan Communities Union alongside Cemil Bayik. She is the sixth member of the General Presidential Council, the highest authoritative body in the PKK.
Rasan was a Kurdish non-governmental human rights organization that was established in 2004 in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. Rasan focused on LGBT rights and women's rights. The organization ran projects that focused on coexistence and social cohesion through the use of arts, social awareness, focus groups, livelihood projects, seminars, workshops, training, and action plans. Rasan engaged community leaders from different sectors in community forums on gender identity, equality and coexistence.
Lanja Khawe is a Kurdish lawyer, writer and feminist. She is the founder of the Sofia Association and the social media campaign #KurdistanWomenPower, also founder of Pana community to prevent and reduce suffering of homelessness without any gender based discrimination.
Tülay Hatimoğulları Oruç is a Turkish linguistics rights activist and politician. She is the Co-Chair of the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party and a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.
Emine Kara, also known by the nom de guerre Evîn Goyî, was a Turkish Kurdish militant and political activist who served as president of the Mouvement des femmes kurdes en France.
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