Kurdish Human Rights Project: This is the legacy website of the Kurdish Human Rights Project, containing reports and news pertaining to human rights issues in the Kurdish Regions for 20 years. |
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| KHRP Welcomes International Women’s Day |
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With International Women’s Day falling Sunday 8 March, KHRP wishes to take this opportunity to renew its call for greater efforts to secure the protection of women’s rights throughout the Kurdish regions. While all sections of society in this part of the world suffer in one way or another from the consequences of conflict, discrimination and economic hardship, women and girls are amongst the worst affected. Problems faced by many on a daily basis include barriers to education, economic and political marginalisation, forced marriages, honour killings, polygamy, domestic violence, forced prostitution and a lack of enforcement of the rule of law in relation to interpersonal and family matters. KHRP has long sought to address this situation by researching and publicising the patterns of human rights violations that impact upon the lives of women in the Kurdish regions, and training local female advocates on the use of international mechanisms like the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). We have also advanced the boundaries of international law on women’s rights through our litigation, such as the landmark KHRP-assisted case of Aydın v. Turkey before the European Court of Human Rights which established rape as a form of torture. ‘The particular problems facing women in the Kurdish regions have frequently been under-reported,’ said KHRP Executive Director Kerim Yildiz. ‘We hope that International Women’s Day will raise greater global awareness of these hardships and help to secure a better future for millions of Kurdish women and girls.’ The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day focuses on the need for unity between men and women to end gender-based violence.
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