July 17, 2020

“I have many goals, but many of them require me to be in a specific position so that I can help others and create a change in the context of the role of women in Kurdistan. But life in Duhok restricts me in many ways. Among those are culture and the closed environment of the city. Other cities like Sulaimani and Erbil are more open to these matters and women are more free to choose the things they want to do. Like any other girl, I had a lot of family pressure on me and was restricted a lot when I was a child. To support the solution of this issue, we need to work on extending education and showing the importance of making the next generations’ dreams come true for our community and specifically for parents. And especially in matters that relate to women’s cause.”

“I was just 20 when I started working with the Yezidi girls who fled from ISIS. In the beginning, it was very difficult for me to hear their stories. I could not believe that there are people who can hurt others that much. I was a witness to the cases where I saw with my own eyes a child being separated from his mother because he was born as a result of a sexual assault. It is a very difficult job to try and convince someone who has been through all that tragedy that things will be alright and will go back to normal.
After my own experience, my aim is to bring as many women as possible into the project that I am running, to help them gain confidence and show them how strong they are.”