Syrian women battle Daesh, social stigma
near al torshan (Syria) — They are fighting the world’s most feared militants, but hundreds of Arab female fighters battling the Daesh group in Syria are also confronting the disapproval of their relatives and society.
“I braved my tribal clan, my father, my mother. Now I’m braving the enemy,” says 21-year-old Batul, who is part of an Arab-Kurdish alliance battling to capture Daesh’s Syrian stronghold of Raqa.
She is one of more than 1,000 Arab women who have joined Kurdish male and female fighters in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, according to a spokeswoman.
Standing in the desert some 20km from Raqa, Batul speaks passionately about her decision to fight Daesh, which holds the nearby village of Al Torshan.
“My parents told me: ‘either you put down your weapons or we disown you’,” she says. Her parents have not spoken to her since.
Batul comes from the Al Sharabiyeh tribe, one of the tribes of northeast Syria. Her family views her as a rebel, who removed the headscarf and refused her father’s orders to pray in front of him.
But she is proud of the decision she took two years ago to join the YPJ, the female counterpart to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, which is a key component of the SDF alliance.
“I joined the YPJ to liberate my homeland, but also to free women from slavery,” she says. “We must no longer remain cloistered behind four walls.”
Syrian Kurds and Arabs has been fighting Daesh since late 2015. But the current battle for Raqa is the first time Batul has been on the front line, where warplanes roar overhead carrying out strikes, and mortars boom in the distance.
“The first time I held a weapon, I was very afraid,” she admits. “But now, my weapon has become part of me. It frees me and protects me.”
She speaks in Arabic, but her sentences are peppered with Kurdish words picked up from her fellow fighters. “The relations between us and the Kurdish women are good. We don’t speak the same language, but we’re all here to free the country and women.” —