THIS IS AN EXTRACT FROM A REPORT PREPARED BY THE KURDISH WOMEN’S MOVEMENT EUROPE MADE AVAILABLE TO THE CITIZEN

Sharia law has been implemented in the areas controlled by IS. IS terrorists are enemies of all peoples, but especially of women. So far, the terrorists have declared fatwas against women in the violently occupied villages and towns. Here are some of the laws issued by IS (from a fatwa in Turkmen villages in Syria on June 26th):

-Women are not allowed to leave home without male company.

-Markets are prohibited to women, even with male company.

-Women have to cover their faces completely.

-Men are not allowed to shave. The selling of razors is prohibited.

-Of two daughters, one is to be given to IS. If a woman’s “husband” dies at the front, the bride will be “given” to another IS fighter.

-Women have to undergo genital mutilation.

-If women spend more than three months without a husband at home, they have to marry a man determined by IS.

-Men have to pray in the mosque five times a day.

Another tactic of IS is to spread fear among the population and fighters by deliberately exploiting the concept of “honor”, which is prevalent in the region, for their purposes. This way, they want to force the people to either surrender or flee. The terror group is moreover trying to stop the men that fight against them with these methods. In Rojava, as well as in Northern Iraq and Iraq, IS declared the daughters of militants and soldiers fighting IS to be “halal” (Arabic: permissible/allowed). While announcing “Kurdish women are halal” through mosque speakers in Rojava, the Mufti of IS in Mosul issued a fatwa on June 18, 2014, which said “Women and daughters of soldiers and police officers working for Maliki are halal for militants”.

Declaring women as “halal” is the same as openly calling for rape. In the eyes of IS, women are nothing but objects and sex slaves whose will does not matter. Women that were kidnapped by IS-terrorists have often been “given” to men in IS-ranks or “sold” like material goods in markets. Eye witnesses speak of cases in which IS-terrorists cut the breasts of women, who did not surrender, and mutilated their bodies. These crimes against humanity lead to women choosing suicide, in order not to fall into the hands of these barbarians. Last week, at least 40 women jumped off the cliffs in ?engal. A family father first shot his two daughters and them himself, in order not to be captured by IS.

The terrorist group IS is committing crimes against humanity in Syria and Iraq and especially in the Kurdish regions. Especially Yezidis in ?engal are confronted with the danger of genocide. The scope of the massacre is still not fully clear, but it is obvious that thousands of Yezidi people have died.

But furthermore, a feminicide, a war on women, is being led. Women are kidnapped, raped, sold, mutilated and murdered. This circumstance requires special attention as well as a strategy to remove this danger for women and humanity.