A letter from the earthquake region

by Songül Yücel, Coordinator Middle East, Istanbul Turkey

Dear Suse, Halinka and the women of Courage,

First of all, we are sorry for this late answer because we saw your mail after days. Thank you very much for thinking of us. We need every kind of solidarity these days. Even though we are far apart, we know that your heart is with us and we are grateful for that. As you can imagine, we are living in terrible days.

We, in Istanbul, set off as soon as we received the news. More than 10 million people live in the earthquake zone and many of us have family and friends there. We have all been in intense solidarity since the first day. Unfortunately, the houses of our families were destroyed, both our friends and the families of our friends were trapped under the rubble. For the first few days, the state was a bystander. Relatives and friends pulled people out from under the rubble with their bare hands. Many of our relatives died in the concrete because rescue teams did not arrive despite the voices come from under the rubble for days. In the first few days, no search and rescue team came to the cities destroyed after the earthquake. Literally no team! No cranes to lift the rubble, no professional search and rescue teams, no state officials! The state literally left hundreds of thousands of people under the rubble and left them to die. This happened in front of the eyes of everyone living here. Health workers and independent search and rescue teams took the initiative to go to the earthquake zones even though the ministries did not assign them. Volunteers from all over flocked to the region. Our solidarity kept alive the people trapped under the rubble, the people who survived the earthquake with injuries, and the people whose houses collapsed and left them on the streets.

We have been in hell for the last two weeks. We lost a comrade in Hatay, Onur Kopran. He was the Hatay representative of the Union of Struggle (in TR; Mücadele Birliği) and he was just 33 years old when he died. It was on the 10th day of the earthquake that we were able to pull his body out from under the rubble.

The entire family of our friend Canser Dayanır, who was giving a speech on behalf of Turkey at the young women’s session at the 3rd World Women’s Conference, was trapped under the rubble; we rescued her mother and sisters with our own efforts, but unfortunately we could not save her father Hasip Dayanır.

This terrible catastrophe affecting 11 provinces, has brought complete devastation. In these provinces, where the families of Canser, Seher, Gizem, Sena and many other comrades from EKA live, the devastation is immense. The beautiful, ancient and multicultural province of Hatay was almost completely destroyed. The earthquake did damage that no war could ever do. The city center of Hatay was completely destroyed. The destruction in the districts and villages is less, but no one can enter their homes. Very strong earthquakes continue to occur. Most recently, there was another earthquake centered in Hatay the other day. Many damaged buildings collapsed by this earthquake and people were again trapped under the rubble.

We have seen that you have started an aid campaign. Thank you very much for this. We know that it will take a very long time to heal our wounds. But there is still a lot to do today. The biggest need here is winter tents and supplies like dry food and canned food. In the first week, trucks of supplies arrived from all over the region, but now this aid has decreased a lot. The state confiscated some of the aid, so some of the trucks could not reach the people in need. But this support needs to continue. Earthquake victims will have to live in tents for a very long time. This will take months. That is why it is very vital for them to have continuous support.

We will be going through such a time as the theoretical seminar of the Women’s Conference approaches. We propose to dedicate the theoretical seminar to the women who lost their lives in the earthquake. Maybe the conference can be dedicated to both the women who lost their lives under the rubble and the earthquake victims. This would be a good solidarity for women living in earthquake zones.

We embrace you all with love.

Songül Yücel

Turkish Representative of Labor Women, Emekçi Kadınlar / EKA

Earthquake in Turkey and Syria ! Humanitarian aid is urgently needed !

Thousands of people have died, the survivors are struggling to rescue their loved ones and neighbors in freezing temperatures. We mourn and share the concerns of the affected people in Turkey and Syria !
Also affected are the areas of democratic self-government in the north of Syria, Rojava. According to recent news (SWR 07.02.23 15:00), the Turkish air force flies attacks against these areas. What inhuman policy of the rulers of Turkey!

We do not make an own donation action but support the relief action of Solidarity International, which organizes the cooperation with the Kurdish Red Crescent, Heyva Sor a Kurdistanê.
“Heyva Sor is an experienced and prudent partner with whom the member organization in Solidarität International e.V. (SI), “Medicine for Rojava”, has already successfully cooperated, most recently in supplying the maternity clinic in Kobanê to support its ongoing operations.” (From Solidarity International’s appeal for donations)

For the purchase of emergency medication and dressing material directly on site we ask for donations to the aid account:

Please transfer donations to the account of Solidarität International (SI) e.V.
IBAN: DE86 5019 0000 6100 8005 84
BIC: FFVBDEFF
at the Frankfurter Volksbank
Keyword “Earthquake Kurdistan”

Statement from Kongra Star on the assassination of 3 Kurds on 26 Dec, 2022

We defend the women’s revolution against political femicide!
Yesterday (the 23rd of December, 2022) three Kurds were shot and killed in a terrorist

attack in Paris. The gunman also wounded another three people in three different

locations that all belong to the Kurdish community in Paris. In this context this attack is

more than simply a racist attack, which is how state authorities and the mainstream

media are presenting it. It is a politically motivated assassination targeting the Kurdistan

freedom movement.
(more…)

Closing Resolution of the 3rd World Women’s Conference Tunis 2022

Resolution of Tunis

We are women, we are strong!

Finally! The 3rd World Women’s Conference of Grassroots Women took place in Tunis/Tunisia from September 3 to 9, 2022, in solidarity, with a hunger for knowledge, eager for debate, self-confident and confident of victory. With a militant demonstration attracting much media attention, a festive opening ceremony, 31 workshops, a general assembly rich in content, inspiring cultural evenings and a joint closing plenary, it inspired minds and emotions under the motto “We are women, we are strong.” The conference with 450 participants, 93 delegates from 42 countries was fought for in tireless work by the warm hosts of the women’s committee Latifah Tamallah, together with the Tunisian preparatory committee including about 10 organizations: women’s and human rights organizations, trade unions, rural women, as well as the coordinators of the world women and countless activists around the world. All this in the headwind of a world whose ruling systems can exist only in crises: economic crises, political crises, environmental crises, food crises, crisis of bourgeois refugee policy, health crises, debt crises… Many regions of the world have already been shaken by wars in the last decades. The war in Ukraine bears as a new quality the danger of a 3rd world war, a nuclear catastrophe through a war which is unjust on both sides. We witness a global environmental crisis which is developing into a catastrophe and destroying our existence.

Both show relentlessly: imperialism leads to war and destroys our foundations of life. The USA continues to be the main warmonger. In their competitive struggle NATO and all imperialist powers go over dead bodies. Bourgeois manipulation of opinion uses the Ukraine war to divert attention from other focal points.

We, on the other hand, see the connection: The occupation of Palestine by Zionist Israel in defiance of international law. Turkey’s brutal aggression against Rojava and 10 years of “women’s revolution”. The terror of religious fanatics, jihadists, the Taliban against the masses in Afghanistan. The trampling upon the right of self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara. The particular neo-colonial exploitation of Africa.

For the women of the world, this all means immeasurable suffering, humiliation, pain: We hear of femicide, sexual violence, genital mutilation, child marriages, nipples cut off as trophies, bellies of pregnant women cut open alive, whippings, dead babies of refugee families washed up on beaches, machismo, sexism, forced prostitution – including of children, oppression and murder of LGBT+, women who died because abortion was denied, mass rape as an ordered, targeted and rewarded weapon of war, low wages, persistent blatant wage differences compared to men, mass unemployment, poverty in old age, horrendous inflation, drought and floods, imprisonment, terror and torture against women resistance fighters and revolutionary women. We heard how a woman peasant lives and protests against the destruction of her living space, Mother Earth. All of this by no means only in the so-called “backward regions of the world”, but also in the midst of the so-called “rich, advanced countries” – precisely under imperialist rule! These are the faces of double and triple exploitation and oppression of the masses of women, of sexualized violence, with all of its disgusting faces, by the greatest patriarchic perpetrators of violence: the state and family system of the feudal, capitalist and imperialist countries. We therefore demand that all imperialists withdraw from our countries. NATO – get out of our countries.

In the entire world women fight against environmental crimes. We work together with all forces which want to save our Mother Earth.

The women workers and peasants, the indigenous women, environmentalists, human rights activists and the young women of the world are opposing all of this courageously: as individuals, in initiatives, movements, women’s organizations, trade unions, parties, through courageous exposures and documentations of crime, through court cases conducted at the risk of their own lives, through strikes, through organizing underground schools, in mass movements up to and including uprisings. More and more often, revolutionary situations arise in which the masses no longer want to live in the old way and the rulers can no longer rule in the old way. Because today all people could have work, bread, health and education! This is only possible without capitalism, imperialism and patriarchy.

But let us not deceive ourselves: no uprising, no revolution can be sustainable if not steadfast, anchored, conscious people who are prepared for everything are organized in mass movements, mass organizations and parties and work together in full confidence. Only together with the international working class will the force emerge that is superior to imperialism, that is unsurmountable with its clarity, revolutionary perspectives and worldwide connections. The new society of the liberation of women and all of humanity will triumph against all bitter opposition.

The preliminary battles for this are fought in the minds and hearts of the people. The destructive, demoralizing and divisive ideas of the rulers must lose their power: fascism, machismo, sexism, colonialism, racism, nationalism, chauvinism, opportunism, anti-communism, post-modernism, Zionism, politically misused religions and related modes of thinking and behavior.

As a movement of world women we are making a determined contribution. Each one of us takes over responsibility for our ambitious program until the 4th World Women’s Conference in 2027: Daily awareness-raising and organizing work for the broadest women’s mass movement from religion to revolution. Strong worldwide days of struggle on March 8, May Day and November 25, with calls of the World Women’s Conference, and we mobilize for World Peace Day. On these days of struggle we want to fight together as world women against worldwide crises and wars. March 8 must become a holiday. When the time is ripe – women’s strike!

Two continental conferences on every continent. In 2024/25 the second theoretical seminar: “Women’s revolution – social-ecological transformation – socialist revolution: how can we conquer imperialism?” We strengthen the coordinators of the world women, elect four coordinators on every continent in future and include young world women in a binding way. They work closely together, but two coordinators each concentrate on continental coordination and two on worldwide coordination. We make an urgent call to organizations, parties and movements: Give them more resources and support! Promote the change of generations. Let us found continental young women’s committees. One young woman from each country takes part in the committee. We form a permanent organization committee so that we never wear ourselves out with disorganization.

We warmly invite you: participate in the platform of world women in the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist united front or in new revolutionary amalgamations. In our organizations and movements we all promote education, self-confidence and that women and girls take over leading functions. We reach out and join hands with all alliance partners.

Women and girls of the world – our time has come!

Yes we have ! Cheap accommodation options found !

Very good news from Tunisia ! Yesterday (25.08.22) the preparatory committee was able to secure reasonably priced accommodation. It is again a student dormitory ( university housing / dormitory ) in the Foyer universitaire.
The cost is 8,- € per person and night.
The application for the overnight places and the payment takes place during the registration – the criteria for the allocation of the places applied so far are valid.

To the delegates of the 3rd World Women’s Conference: Please fill in the delegate form !

  • Please download the delegate form where you record your country, name, etc. It is absolutely necessary to record this information so that the conference can have an accurate picture of the delegate assembly (e.g. also for translation). Please bring the delegate form filled out to the conference – DO NOT send it by email !

WWCTUN Delegate form_English

WWCTUN Delegate form Turkish

  • To the delegates of the 3rd World Conference on Women:
    Please send your speeches early for translation to the following address: ute.kellert@posteo.de