Kurdistan PM: Women have played crucial role in Kurdish struggle

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said on Friday that women have long played a crucial role in the struggle for Kurdish rights and said he would work toward an end to inequality and to gender-based violence in the autonomous region.

He made the remarks on the occasion of the sixty-eighth anniversary of the founding of the Kurdistan Women Union (KWU), where he congratulated the group's leadership and members and also expressed his wishes for their continued success.

"The Kurdistan Women Union, and the women of Kurdistan in general, had clear and influential participation in the liberation movement of the people of Kurdistan and in the various stages of the revolution," Barzani said in a statement.

He added that the KWU "has always been a strong supporter of the Peshmerga and our national struggle and the rights of Kurdistan's women, so I look with respect and appreciation at the struggles of the Kurdistan Women Union in its defense of Kurdish women's rights."

Ever since its formation in 1952, the KWU has actively participated in the Kurdish national struggle and fought for the realization of both human and democratic rights of the people of Kurdistan.

According to the organization, its mission "is to fight oppression and discrimination against Kurdish women, fighting "for overall better treatment of Kurdish people... as well as an end to discrimination against women in the patriarchal Kurdish society."

Its programs include "education, job training, and other livelihood opportunities to empower Kurdish women," as well as running a health care center that provides basic services to poor families and "holds regular gatherings to empower and educate women about their rights within the KDP party and beyond."

Editing by John J. Catherine