Abuses against Kurdish women in Afrin debated in the Turkish Parliament

Tulay Hatimogullari, MP for the People's Democratic Party, has presented this week a parliamentary enquiry to the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mevlut Cavusoglu. In this investigation, the kidnapping of hundreds of women and girls in the north of Syria, who are taken to Libya to be sold as sex slaves, has been denounced by militias supported by Turkey.

Turkey has reaffirmed its control in the north of Syria and more specifically in the area of Afrin, where it has extended the influence of its security services with the help of the Syrian armed factions aligned with the Turks and organised under the National Army. This has occurred amidst continued abuses by these armed factions, including acts of looting, theft, kidnapping and the requisitioning of the civilian population's property.

Kurdish women suffer, besides what has been mentioned before, from rape, kidnapping and sexual exploitation. More than 200 women have been kidnapped by mercenaries since the invasion of Afrin in March 2018. In total, more than 1,000 women and girls are believed to be missing in Afrin alone after Turkey's two-month Operation Olive Branch, which expelled the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) from the region two years ago.

MP Hatimogullari has become the first politician, who has introduced this denunciation into Turkey's internal agenda. During her speech in the Parliament, she stressed Turkey's responsibility and judicial complicity in relation to these accusations that refer to the criminal acts of the rebels supported by the Eurasian country. 

Hatimogullari also asked Cavusoglu to clarify the statements on whether the Kurdish women from Afrin had been kidnapped through Turkey were true or not. "Are you investigating the claims that girls and women from Afrin were sent to Libya as slaves? Is your ministry aware of the sexual assaults in Afrin's camps and prisons? Will it take the necessary measures to address these rights violations? Will it carry out coordinated activities with international organisations in this regard," she asked.

All the details concerning this complaint are documented within the framework of the Afrin Missing Women's Project, which has been monitoring the abduction and disappearance of Kurdish women and girls in the area since 2018. The mission opted for an interactive map showing the identification of the person, the date and place of the incident, the armed group responsible and whether or not the person in question has been reported.

Based on the testimonies collected, hundreds of Kurdish girls were abducted and taken to Turkey through military crossing points on the Syrian-Turkish border to be sold as sex slaves to traders in Qatar and sent back to Libya.

Human rights groups have on multiple occasions expressed concern about the increase in abuses against civilians in Afrin. Indeed, in February 2019, the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission on Syria published an assessment report on the human rights situation in Afrin. In this report the commission states that "there are reasonable grounds to believe that members of Afrin's armed groups committed the war crimes of hostage-taking, cruel treatment, torture and looting."

Afrin is yet another example of the barbarity that can result from armed conflict, where ultimately the most vulnerable are those who end up paying a high price.