{"id":13299,"date":"2024-12-30T17:42:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T17:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/?p=13299"},"modified":"2024-12-30T17:42:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T17:42:14","slug":"interview-zenobia-womens-gathering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/interview-zenobia-womens-gathering\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview \u2013 Zenobia Women\u2019s Gathering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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L to R: Buthina Abod and <\/em>Miyada al-Ahmed<\/em> [July 2024]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re here to be a real source of support for women, helping them understand their role in the workplace and within their families.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

RIC spoke to Zenobia Women\u2019s Gathering<\/a>, the main organization advocating for women\u2019s rights<\/a> in the Arab-majority regions of North and East Syria. Miyada al-Ahmed, the coordinator of Zenobia Women\u2019s Gathering, and Buthina Abod, its spokesperson, outlined the organization\u2019s development, the challenges they have been facing as well as their current work in the Raqqa<\/a> region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miyada al-Ahmed states the mission of Zenobia: \u201cWe\u2019re here to be a real source of support for women, helping them understand their role in the workplace and within their families.\u201d She explains that even before the brutal violence and repression of ISIS, women lacked basic rights in the region. She notes that traditions which consider women\u2019s role to be serving the family and producing children still hold women back: \u201cWe are working on changing the mentality. We must challenge those traditions that are creating suffering for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She explains how women\u2019s lives have improved since Raqqa\u2019s liberation from ISIS in 2017: \u201cWomen have been successful in all fields of work, including politics. Zenobia trains, educates and empowers women to work. Additionally, several economic projects have been created to provide job opportunities for women, such as picking olives and growing wheat. The goal is for women to be able to rely on themselves and be financially independent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zenobia was officially founded in June 2021. Buthina Abod tells of the obstacles faced by Zenobia in its initial years: \u201cWe had to overcome extraordinary challenges to achieve our goals. We had to start from scratch, since all buildings and infrastructure were destroyed. Raqqa was like a ghost city. In the beginning, we worked in houses. Eventually, we established a women\u2019s administration for our organisation.\u201d Since then, the organization has grown and established offices in the Raqqa, Tabqa<\/a>, Manbij<\/a> and Deir ez-Zor<\/a> regions. It is divided into different committees, working on topics such as archive and media, education and awareness, training, finance, relations and health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buthina Abod points out that the core of Zenobia\u2019s work is furthering women\u2019s rights in the region by empowering women: \u201cThe ideology of ISIS has influenced women\u2019s mindsets. For example, women were led to accept underage marriage and polygamy. As a women\u2019s organization, our responsibility is to change their mentality and show them that these practices are harmful. To this end, we have conducted awareness campaigns. We share information about marriage and divorce, how to raise children and how to foster a safe and healthy community.\u201d The awareness campaigns have led to a boost in the numbers of women participating in the work of Zenobia: \u201cOur numbers are growing steadily. Regularly, new people join us and become familiar with what we stand for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combating violence against women and all kinds of abuse is another essential part of the work of Zenobia.For instance, they took on the case of honor-based violence in Tel Samen IDP camp (in the Raqqa region), a video of which went viral in February 2024. At least two sisters were accused of having extra-marital relations and were heavily beaten by their uncle and cousins. Buthina Abod states that: \u201cZenobia filed a complaint against the perpetrators of the attack, and they are now in prison. We also helped, treated and protected the women victims in a women\u2019s house<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miyada al-Ahmed recounts the development of women\u2019s houses since their beginning, and how the attitude of society towards them has changed: \u201cIn the beginning, we faced difficulties in how we were perceived. It was needed that women come to us to report problems so that we can help them. Many husbands did not want us to come into their homes to resolve issues. Men were under the impression that we were a court and that we were coming to hold them responsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, this has changed. Now, even men come to ask us for help when they are facing marital problems, like families interfering in their relationships. We explain that it is wrong to divide a family when both parties do not want that. When families are torn apart by internal conflict, it has a knock-on effect on society as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe\u2019re here to be a real source of support for women, helping them understand their role in the workplace and within their families.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[252,85],"tags":[311,312],"class_list":["post-13299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracy","category-women","tag-mala-jin","tag-zenobiya"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"This report was published by Rojava Information Center<\/a> on 28 August, 2024","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13302,"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13299\/revisions\/13302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesopotamia.coop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}