#jinwar

Jinwar is a village for women and children in the Autonomous Administration of Nort and East Syria (also known as Rojava). It was built during the Syrian civil war, and is home to Kurdish, Arab and Yezidi women.

Some of the women have even been part of the YPJ, the Kurdish all-female fighting force within the Syrian Defense Forces.

Many of the women who have found refuge in Jinwar have been assaulted by soldiers or fled ISIS. In 2015, the UN concluded that about 40 percent of women and girls have experienced sexual violence while trying to access aid.

The village was inspired by the women's village in Umoja, Kenya, and the only men who are allowed inside the village are visitors who can come in by day. I think that this kinda shows how important it is for women all around the world to connect and to show to our sisters how stuff can be done.

I mean, building something like that in the face of ISIS???? In one of the most brutal warzones of the world, in Syria?? Building a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and ecological village? Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I think that only women would be able to do something like this.

During the genocide, Yazidi men were rounded up and shot then dumped in mass graves. The women were taken to be sold in Isis’s slave markets, many passed from fighter to fighter, who inflicted physical and sexual abuse.

Yazidi children have been brainwashed and rights groups say suicide among captives is common. Even for those who manage to escape after years of enslavement and rape, many struggle to survive without an income or identity papers.

Jinwar is a female-only community, set up by the women of the local Kurdish-run administration to create a space where women can live “free of the constraints of the oppressive power structures of patriarchy and capitalism”. It opened in November and 12 of its 30 adobe brick houses are home to Kurdish, Yazidi and Arab families.

The women built their own houses, bake their own bread and tend to the livestock and farmland, cooking and eating together. On Saturday, people from the neighbouring villages have been invited to a graduation celebration for a group of local women who had attended a course on natural medicines at Jinwar’s education centre.

“Under Isis we were strangled and now we are free. But even before that, women stayed at home. We didn’t go out and work. In Jinwar, I’ve seen that women can stand alone.”

Jinwar grew out of the democratic ideology that has fuelled the creation of Rojava, a Kurdish-run statelet in north-eastern Syria, since the civil war broke out in 2011.

The area has largely thrived despite the presence of enemies on all sides: Isis, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s troops, and Turkey, which regards the Kurdish YPG fighters as a terrorist organisation.

The women’s revolution, as it is known, is a significant part of Rojava’s philosophy. Angered by the atrocities committed by Isis, Kurdish women formed their own fighting units. Later, Arab and Yazidi recruits joined them on the front lines to liberate their sisters.

Jinwar is not finished yet: there are gardens to plant and an empty library waiting for books. The community is still coming up with ideas. Behind the education centre there is a swimming pool that will be filled with water in the summer. Most of the residents will get to use a pool – the reserve of only men in most of the Middle East – for the first time.

The women have also voted for driving lessons and to start a sewing business.

There are plans for a second commune in Deir Ezzor, an Arab province that is still the scene of fierce fighting to destroy Isis – but there is also a sense that what has been built at Jinwar is fragile and could be taken away.

It is not clear what will happen when US troops leave the area in a few months. Renewed fighting is a possibility.