Either I am sexually harassed, or I am ignored.
I even know Kurdish women who have been raped.
Why is it that women, especially minorities, are treated this way?
Is Europe really a place where silence and violence against women have become normalized?
We need no Istanbul convention,
signed in palaces far away.
We need a Kurdish convention,
born from the mountains,
rooted in the rivers of Zagros,
written in the voices of women
who will never be silenced again.
Let the ink be our pain,
let the paper be our history,
let the words be our freedom.
No foreign capital can teach us dignity,
no state can grant us what is ours.
A Kurdish convention —
not to beg for safety,
but to declare:
we are not to be touched without consent,
we are not to be ignored,
we are not to be erased.
From Malatya to Duhok,
from Hasakah to Mahabad,
let this be the law we live by:
Kurdish women are the heart of the nation,
and the nation will rise
when they are safe,
respected,
and free.