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International Conference on Kurdish Women
for Peace and Equality 21.3.2007 |
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PRESS RELEASE
March 21, 2007,
eKurd.net
The Conference was
dedicated to the memory of the late Mrs. Soraya
Serajeddini Previous Executive Vice President of the
Kurdish National Congress
Resolution & Suggestions
For The International Conference on Kurdish Women
for Peace and Equality
On March 8th, 2007 the Kurdish National Congress of
North America held its first International Women’s
Conference in Southern Kurdistan in Yaki Shubat Hall
of the KRG in Erbil to address issues relating to
Kurdish women around the globe .
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), through the
Minister of State for Women Affairs, sponsored the
conference. The conference was held under the
leadership of the President of the Kurdistan Region
Mr. Masoud Barzani, and attended by the Speaker of
the Parliament Mr. Adnan Mufti, the Governor of
Hawler Mr. Nawzad Hadi, Minister of State for Women
Affairs Dr Jinan Qasim, Members of the Kurdish
Parliaments, Ministers, Government officials,
President and Secretaries of the Kurdish parties
from Eastern and Western Kurdistan, Kurdish and
non-Kurdish NGOs, intellectuals and personalities
from all parts of Kurdistan and the rest of the
world. |
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The conference discussed a variety of subjects,
addressing the obstacles facing the advancement of
the Kurdish women’s movement in all aspects of
Kurdish women’s lives inside and outside Kurdistan.
The conference created a new debate platform and a
fresh look at the problems facing Kurdish women.
The conference recognized that advancing the role of
Kurdish women in society is crucial to the
development and the Kurdish people.
Understanding the importance of women’s empowerment
for the development of a free and democratic nation,
realizing there exists no alternative to women’s
participation in all echelons of the Kurdish
community, pinpointing how crucial it is to increase
opportunities for Kurdish women to network with each
other, and valuing the exchange of ideas between
individuals and groups, and believing in the power
of a core group of people to create social change
and advancement of their rights.
The participants of the first International
Conference on Kurdish Women for Peace and Equality
call for:
A. The
establishment of an international steering committee
for future activities:
Commit them to become more organized on behalf of
the empowerment of Kurdish women,
Pledge them to create additional opportunities for
Kurdish women to share knowledge and resources with
each other; and
Dedicate them to change the status quo for the
betterment of all who live in Kurdistan.
B. The
Resolution committee of the International Conference
on Kurdish Women urges the legislative branch to:
1. Build a housing complex for Anfal women,
which must include a Culture center to:
• Remove the negative emotional effect by providing
continuous consolation, emotional therapy and
medical help.
• Eliminating high percentage of illiteracy.
• Providing training with the tools to work and
depend on themselves rather than the government or
other member of the remaining family. Their
dependence on the family often results in abuse and
cruelty against them.
• Create jobs for them as a priority for the
government and the public to help them to get out of
the depression they are in.
2. Ensure punishment by law for any kind of
abuse against women.
3. Find powerful mechanisms for preventing
abuse such as Honor Killing, self brining forced by
abuse, beating, verbal and physical abuse under the
law,
4. Prevent tribal settlement by law in Honor
killing cases.
5. Ensure punishment by law for forced
prostitution by the husband or any member of the
family.
6. Prevent forced circumcision by law for
women, which violates religious and civil rights.
7. Change the civil rights law, which has
existed since 1959, by protecting women’s rights
regarding divorce and polygamy. The law must protect
the rights of women and men at the same time, where
women and men have the rights to 50% of all money,
properties, business and household belongings held
at the time of the divorce. The polygamy must be
prohibited, only if there is a medical issue
involved and this must regulated by law.
8. Establish Community Culture centers in
every city, small town, and village to perform the
following:
• Professional training: occupational center such as
job skills, computer, medical assistant, sewing,
housekeeping, business, language, etc.
• Emotional therapy: counseling, phone hotline, art
therapy.
• Family (children): Childcare provider, workshops,
activities and games.
• Social events: dance classes, photography, theater
performances, exercise facilities (sport complex).
• Educational: To provide educational opportunities,
group workshop, Language training hygiene workshop,
recruitment opportunity to get jobs, website for the
center capable of broadcasting all the activities in
the center, and to prevent genital mutilation.
9. Ensure the Government provides land,
financial support and security protection to the
current NGOs to build new shelter homes to protect
the women from cruelty and abuse in each city, small
town and village to provide:
• Counseling services to help men and women put
their lives together back under one roof free from
physical abuse and to preserve the family integrity.
Also, to emphasis on the future of the children and
the negative effects on them in the long term.
• Medical help to remove the negative aspects of the
abuse and rebuild confidence to be part of the
society again.
• Job training to prepare women to be financially
independent of their husband and the family.
10. Increase the role of the women in the
Kurdistan Regional Government and all other
legislative branches. The women in Kurdistan must be
given important ministerial posts to show true
support by the government. The percentage of the
women in Ministry is among the lowest in the world.
11. Ensure the Government creates job
opportunities for women to be independent
financially of their husband and other members of
the family, because economic independence of women
will result in self-confidence and lowering the
abuse against them.
12. Increase the role of the women in the
leadership of Kurdish political parties to reflect
the true sacrifice they have given to advance the
cause of the Kurdish people to gain rights for
self-determination.
13. The Government must strengthen the
responsibility of the Ministry State for Women
Affairs, where they have control on all the women
NGO to coordinate their efforts to advance women’s
rights in all aspects of life. The ministry can play
an important role as a liaison between the
government and the NGOs to make the NGOs more
efficient and effective. The ministry must establish
a think tank group from women in and outside
Kurdistan as an advisory group to the ministry to
deal with all the issues related to the future of
women in Kurdistan and bridge women in Kurdistan
with international partners around the world.
14. Strengthen networking to advance and
coordinate women’s rights globally:
1. Create a network between Kurdish women’s
organizations in Kurdistan.
2. Create a network between Kurdish women’s
organizations in Europe.
3. Create a network between Kurdish women’s
organizations and other worldwide organizations such
as American and European women organizations.
The conference delegates salute the Kurdish
Parliament for the percentage of the women in the
Parliament, which ranks high among parliaments in
the world. The delegates look forward to increase
their number in the next Parliamentary election
based on their qualifications not the quota.
The conference strongly emphasizes the role of
engaging men in women’s issue and the women were
delighted by the percentage of men present in the
conference and discussions. This was the first time
there is high percentage of men present in any
women’s conference in Kurdistan. This phenomenon
will help the women to advance the role and rights
in the near future. Also, help the men to understand
the importance of the role of women to be partners
in building a new society.
The Kurdish National Congress is committing itself
to continue advancing the cause of women in
Kurdistan to gain their full rights through such
conferences and advises all the NGOs in Kurdistan to
coordinate their efforts with other NGOs outside
Kurdistan.
All speeches and papers presented at the conference
will be published in a special booklet soon.
For more information regarding the conference,
please contact:
Mrs. Soraya Fallah, email: sorayaf40 (at) yahoo.com,
soraya (at) vokradio.com, or email KNC at:
knc (at) kurdishnationalcongress.org,
For more detail Please visit
www.kncna.org ,
http://www.vokradio.com/
The Kurdish National Congress of North America
P.O. Box 1663,
Lake Forest, CA 92630
USA
Tel/Fax: 949-583-1417
1975 St. Laurent Blvd
Ottawa, ON
K1G3S7, CANADA
Tel 613-216-1427
www.kncna.org
P.O. Box 545
Millersville, MD 21108
USA
Tel: 410-987-0166
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