Mizgin Adım/JINHA

ŞIRNEX – Teenage girls in the Northern Kurdish town of Silopi may not be able to vote, but they organized a concert to call on adults to vote for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey's upcoming election.

Although Kurdish girls in the town of Silopi may not be able to vote, they are calling on adults to vote for the HDP for an end to the oppression of their culture, their language and their youth. In the Cizre Botan region of Northern Kurdistan (Turkey), the toll of the AKP's war on its own civilians is high for children. Security forces shot a number of children during protests in the nearby city of Cizre earlier this year.

"If the HDP wins, our brothers and sisters won't die and children won't be killed anymore," said 13-year-old Zahide Acar, a member of the group of teenage girls who held a concert to raise morale and support for the HDP.

16-year-old Felek Kuş said that since she couldn't vote, her erbane (a traditional percussion instrument) was her voice in the election. The concert, organized by the Kurdish women's group Congress of Free Women (KJA), broke social norms in the region (where it is considered taboo for women and girls to play music), but Felek said that the girls were "resisting with our songs."

Meryem Çavluk, 14, said she was particularly concerned about elections fraud from the AKP in the upcoming election. She explained that she joined the concert because a vote for the HDP means a vote for her culture and for her right to education in her native language. "For me, HDP is what it means to stand up for my values," said Meryem.

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