Lanja Khawe | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | January 1993 Sulaymaniah |
| Nationality | Kurdish |
| Occupation(s) | Lawyer, writer, activist |
Lanja Khawe (born 1993) 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.
Khawe was born in January 1993 in Sulaymaniah, South Kurdistan within the political borders of Iraq. [1] A lawyer and human rights activist, Khawe has worked with Kurdish women who are survivors of sex trafficking and domestic violence. [2] She founded the Sofia Association in 2016 to provide a book delivery service by bicycle for women and girls who are unable to buy them. [3] [4] According to Khawe, the project encourages literacy and access to knowledge, so that women can understand the rights they have more fully. [5] [1] It is not just the supply of books that is a feminist act for the organisation - even using bicycles as transport makes a feminist statement, since women riding them is still seen as shameful. [5] Since its beginnings in Sulaymaniah, the project has spread to other cities, including Erbil, Kirkuk and Halabja. [1]
In 2017 Khawe founded the social media campaign #KurdishWomenPower which encouraged women to share photos of themselves on social media, challenging the idea that photographs online of women are inherently shameful. [6] [2] In 2019 Khawe and the Sofia Association organised a conference on sexual violence in Sulaymaniah, which was attended by Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani. [7] She is a contributor to the anthology, Kurdish Women's Stories, edited by Houzan Mahmoud. [8]
Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan refers to the Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of Greater 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), a semi-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 Anfal campaign was a counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq from February to September 1988 during the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign targeted rural Kurds because its purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups and Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate. The Ba'athist regime committed atrocities on the local Kurdish population, mostly civilians.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Iraq face severe challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Openly LGBTQ individuals are subject to criminal penalties under the 2024 law making homosexual relations punishable by up to 15 years in prison with fines and deportation; the 2024 law also criminalizes and makes punishable by prison time promoting homosexuality, doctors performing gender-affirming surgery, and men deliberately acting like women. Discrimination is also widespread. Openly gay men are not permitted to serve in the military and same-sex marriage or civil unions are illegal. LGBTQ people do not have any legal protections against discrimination and are frequently victims of vigilante justice and honor killings.
Kurdistan Region (KRI) is a semi-autonomous federal region of the Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurdish-majority governorates of Arab-majority Iraq: Erbil Governorate, Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Duhok Governorate, and Halabja Governorate. It is located in northern Iraq, which shares borders with Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, and Syria to the west.
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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.
Houzan Mahmoud 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 and is the co-founder of the Culture Project, a platform for Kurdish feminists, writers and activists.
Kurds in the United Kingdom or British Kurds refers to people of Kurdish origin born in or residing in the United Kingdom.
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.
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Human rights in Iraqi Kurdistan refer to the human rights issue in the autonomous area of Kurdistan Region.
Asuda for Combating Violence against Women is a women's rights NGO operating in Iraqi Kurdistan. The term Asuda means: "providing comfort".
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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.
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.
Sara Omar is a Danish-Kurdish author, human rights activist and poet. She is the first internationally recognized female novelist from Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She started out as a poet and has published several critical articles in the Middle Eastern media.
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.
Amna Suraka is a museum in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Women in the Iran–Iraq War were active in a number of roles.
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