JINHA

MÊRDÎN – Selma Öztürk, of the Kurdish province of Mardin, says that after her daughter headed to Rojava to join the YPJ, she joined the organization Peace Mothers to work for her daughter’s cause of freedom and equality.

The Peace Mothers have continued their struggle for peace in Kurdistan in spite of heavy police repression since the day they were founded. The town of Kızıltepe in Mardin province was an especially important site of the resistance in Kurdistan throughout the 1990s, when Kurdish security forces’ torture and repression of Kurds was intense. Here, 35 mothers of youths who have joined the PKK and other Kurdish defense groups gather in the city, which still has a heavy military presence. Selma, 41, joined this Peace Mothers Assembly in 2013, when her daughter joined the YPJ.

Selma says that struggling as a member of the Peace Mothers has helped her deal with the loneliness she feels in the absence of her daughter. She says that like all Peace Mothers, she hopes that by struggling for peace, she’ll be able to see her daughter Beritan again one day.

“My daughter chose to be not just my daughter, but the daughter of her people,” said Selma. “So I chose to be not just her mother, but the mother of all children.”

The local Peace Mothers Assembly sees part of their work as working for the liberation of women. They travel the neighborhood trying to get in touch with and work for solidarity with abused women. They also attend actions and protests in the region, once traveling to the capital of Ankara to demonstrate in front of the Parliament.

(rk/zd/fk/cm)