As we approach International Women’s Day 2025, a new interview with the residents of Jinwar women’s village in Rojava, northeast Syria, has been published by Mezopotamya News Agency.
Jinwar was established in 2017, and is inspired by the political paradigm of imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, who said “living spaces, not shelters, should be established for women”. It is situated close to Dirbêsiyê city in Rojava’s Cizîrê Canton in northeast Syria.
The village was established after discussions amongst the different women’s organisations in Rojava in 2016. Construction started in 2017, and doors opened on 25 November 2018, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Jinwar is designed as a place where women survivors of male violence can create a free life together. It has also been a haven for women whose husbands have passed away.
Since then, admissions to the village have been managed by the Kongra Star women’s federation. When a woman wants to join, the village administration discusses whether the person is suitable, and, if she is accepted, members of the administration take on welcoming her to Jinwar. The residents are asked every six months whether they still want to remain in the village, and if they want to move on they are given help and support.
So far women from Dirbesiyê, Kobani (Kobanê), Deir ez-Zor (Dêrazor), Şedadê, Shehba (Şehba) and Ras-Al-Ayn (Serêkaniyê) in Rojava and Sulaymaniyah (Silêmanî), Sinjar (Şengal) and Makhmour (Mexmur) in Iraqi Kurdistan have all come to live in Jinwar.
A statement from Jinwar explains the reasons for the establishment of the village:
“The idea of a women’s village in Rojava was born years ago, building on a long and likewise hidden history of women-centred societies, spaces and utopias, also encouraged by Abdullah Öcalan who expressed the wish that women would create their own city.”
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A self-governing experiment in women’s self-governance
The village includes a school, a communal dining hall, a bakery, a shop and Şîfa Jin, a women’s clinic, which uses traditional and herbal medicine. The herbs used in the clinic are grown in the village’s gardens. The village symbol is the hermel herb, which represents abundance. Hermel is used widely in treating many illnesses.
“The Hermel has a long tradition in the region of Rojava Kurdistan. For hundreds of years women created this artifact and placed it above the doors or on the walls of their houses. The pearls are the dried fruits of a plant growing on the small hills that can be found in the flat landscape of Rojava, marking the hidden heritage of ancient villages and forms of civilization. The plant itself is called “Harmal“ (Peganum Harmala) and several myths designate it as a plant of women.”
Jinwar also has an academy teaching history, women’s anatomy, and gynaecology. Steppe Kindergarten and Üveyş Ana primary school teach the children, educating in both English and Arabic.
Work at Jinwar is rotated. Women take shifts in the bakery one day, and may be working in the gardens the next.
Both traditional medicine and traditional housing
The women live in traditional houses, built in the way that people would have done hundreds of years ago. “We decided to build our houses the way people have built their houses in this region since long time ago. For this traditional and sustainable way of building it is important that the weather is warm and dry. For the adobe bricks – kerpîç – we are using a mixture of earth, water and straw,” wrote the residents of Jinwar.
Collective self-administration
Jinwar is run by a women’s council, which meets twice a month – and which all residents of the village are members of. The Council meetings discuss life in the village, as well as wider political developments in the region. The villagers provide their own security needs and education. Fifteen women and 20 children now live at Jinwar, and the villagers sustain themselves through agriculture and animal husbandry, with electricity provided by solar energy. Men are only invited into the village for specific collective work projects. Women living in the village can be visited by their families, but men are not allowed to stay in the village.
Becoming oneself
Mezopotamya Agency (MA) spoke to Yesmin Ehmed, a resident of Jinwar who came to the village after the Turkish invasion of Afrin (Efrin). She explained:
“When we first arrived from Aleppo to the village after the invasion of Afrin, my plan was to go to with my family in Europe. Then a friend of mine told me about Jinwar. There was a curiosity and I wanted to get to know the village. I embraced the life here a lot, and I decided to live here. I told my family in Europe about it, and I reported that I would be staying at Jinwar. Here, I wanted to get to know about life, new friendships, myself and the identity of women. I’ve come to the awareness that you’re not under my attack. This consciousness has affected my daughter. Her life has changed too.”
Ehmed explained to MA how she had got used to life at Jinwar, and become involved in the self-administration and collective working life in the village:
“My daughter and I have been living in Jinwar for five years. I came to the village as a woman who has nothing to do. [I am] in the administration today, and we decide all together about the life here… I got used to things here, with the support of friends, despite the heavy work here, without any difficulty. Gradually, I started learning all the work. I’ve come to know that I’m doing something economically. I used to want to do things, but I was like, ‘You’re a woman, you can’t do your work outside, you should take care of children at home, that’s your job.’ I’ve been through this here, and I’ve had enlightenment. As the woman makes sense of life, her leadership is strengthened.”
‘We will not accept the domination of either ISIS or Turkey’
Ehmed is clear that Jinwar has survived ISIS’s attacks, and it will remain resilient in the face of Turkish attacks and the Turkish backed Syrian National Army (SNA). She told MA how the women of Jinwar had responded to the attacks:
“Jinwar, where women of different identities and beliefs live together, serves as a bridge for the democratic nation paradigm. Since the beginning of the attacks, many of our friends have rushed to help in different areas in accordance with the call for mobilisation. We are still continuing our work. We can say that economic difficulties have forced us, but we continue our work. We continue our education and crop cultivation. We are trying to provide not only basic needs but also psychological support. We will not accept the domination of either ISIS or Turkey. Even if the attacks come to the village, we will not leave, we will protect our village and the Autonomous Administration. We will defend it by standing upright against the attacks.”
To learn more about Jinwar visit their website here, or watch the Jineoloji video about the village here.
