These Kurdish female fighters celebrated in Raqqa this week after the defeat of ISIS militants, whose brutal rule over the city has come to an end after almost four years.
The women said they fought the battle both for the Kurdish cause and to liberate the women of Raqqa. Recall that ISIS ruled the Syrian city with a barbarity that gripped the world, and women in particular experienced an oppression many never thought imaginable.
They were forced to cover their bodies head to toe or risk public lashings. ISIS also captured and sold girls and women as S3x slaves, particularly Kurdish-Yazidi minority women trafficked into Raqqa from northern Iraq.
Shanda Afreen has been fighting ISIS for four years. According to her, ‘the leader Abdullah Ocalan -has concentrated on women’s freedom, so we are fighting to free women and to liberate people mentally. Our fight is not only against ISIS, our fight is against the chauvinist mentality against women”
20 year old Avrim Difram has been fighting ISIS for 3-years! She recalls losing several fellow fighters. But it has made her all the more determined to keep fighting. “We are fighting to free the people who are under oppression and to free the leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned in Turkey,” she told CNN.
Wulat Romin, 24, has been fighting ISIS for a year and half, joining the battle in Raqqa, Tabqa and Al-Hol. “I fight for the freedom of the Kurdish people. I fight against injustice, for righteousness in general. And I fight for the freedom of women in particular” she said.
