afrinpost – Exclusive
The Kurdish people in the occupied Afrin region are threatened with death if they refuse to marry off their daughters to the Turkish-backed militants, and they are forced to marry off their underaged daughters at a short age for fear of the TSO militants, as observers believe that Turkey deliberately allows this actions in order to force the remained Kurds to leave Afrin.
Turkey and its militias have been practicing violations in Afrin since its occupation in March 2018, when more than 350,000 Kurdish citizens were forcibly displaced, and since then the Turkish authorities have been working to devise indirect methods to complete the process of demographic change, in parallel with the continued restrictions on the Kurds of Afrin using various methods to push them to leave their homes and villages.
Forced marriage is one of the methods used by the Muslim Brotherhood militants, which according to the Violations Documentation Center in northern Syria, the rates of underage marriage are increasing, reaching 40% during 2020, that is, two years after the occupation. This is equivalent to 4,500 cases, and the percentage includes Kurdish girls, residents of the region, as well as the IDP girls.
Our team contacted women who were forced to marry while they were minors, and investigated some facts through them.
He married her at gunpoint at the age of 14:
Our correspondent contacted Mrs. (N.) from the village of Qizilbasha in Bulbul sub-district of Afrin, who was forced by the militia occuping her village to marry a gunman named “Salam” at gunpoint.
The story of the 14-years-old girl began with the beginning of the entry of the militia to her village and laiding their eyes on her.They threatened her father with death if he refused to marry off his daughter to the militant “Salam” who is affiliated with the Turkish-backed “Suqour al-Sham” militia, and they harassed the family, by storming the house from time to time, under the pretext of searching for weapons, but the truth was that they wanted to make sure that the girl was still in the house and did not run away.
In one of the raids, gunmen beat her father, and kidnapped the girl’s brother from the house under beatings as well. Later, they the family was given one of two options: either giving them the girl or the whole family is threatened, saying:“ We will erase you from all of Syria. ”
The girl agreed to marry that gunman, in order to save her father and brother and rid them of the threat of inevitable killing, or extortion, and other worse possibilities. After marriage, her father could not bear the matter, so he decided to leave the village and go with his family to the city of Damascus, so that the armed man, “Salam”, took over the family home after them, and is dwelling in it now.
When the Turkey began sending mercenaries to fight in Libya at the end of 2019, the so-called “Salam” joined them, and he was killed there, she said.
After the killing of “Salam,” Mrs. (N)’s story ends with her traveling to Damascus, where her family is, but she still lives with a bitter memory and the traumas she faced.
Two sisters, victims of the militants’ practices:
Tow sisters (A) and (D) from the village of Qizilbasha, in Bulbul sub-district, were forced to marry underaged.
The first was a 14-years-old girl when she got married a year ago. As a gunman, of the “Suqour al-Shamal” known as Kosofy, asked to marry her, but her father refused the request, as his doughter was at the time a student in the eighth grade. However, the gunmen threatened the father with death, and he was forced to marry off his 14-year-old daughter to her cousin, and she moved to another village, in a form that is closer to house arrest, so she does not leave neither to Afrin or her village “Qizilbasha”, for fear of the militia.
The minor girl (A) refuses to have children, and is still hoping that the situation would get better, and she would be able to back to her school and books.
As forher sister (D), says our correspondent, she was 15 years old, when she got married two years ago. Her father faced great harassment from the militants of “Suqour al-Shamal” militia, so that he was also forced to marry her to her cousin. She has a child and lives in one of the neighborhoods of Afrin, and her situation is no different from that of her sister, as she cannot visit her family in the village for fear of the gunmen.
Our team obtained names of several other minors who were forced to marry, but without obtaining further details about their conditions.
It’s a Systematic policy:
Mustafa Abdi, a journalist and administrator at the Violations Documentation Center in Northern Syria, says that there are daily cases of forced marriages of minors, adding: “The family of the minor girls are given the choice between assault, arrest, kidnapping or marrying off their daughters, and this phenomenon is widespread in Afrin villages. Families are often forced to submit to threats and marry off their daughters to armed men. ”
Abdi pointed out that the situation in Afrin has become “a battle for survival and struggle, it is a battle for safety and live in peace. Homes are broken into, women are kidnapped, and what Kurdish citizens are geting through is a great struggle for all societal groups, fathers, mothers and children. Since the beginning of this month, three cases have been documented that Kurdish citizens have submitted to the authorities against IDPs, who harass Kurdish women, to no avail. On the contrary, they said, “This is the reality.” As the security services in Afrin are on the side of the IDPs brought by Turkey to push the Kurdish citizens forcibly leaving Afrin.
Mustafa Abdi notes that: “This is a systematic policy by the Turkish authorities occupying Afrin, and the aim of it is to displace the remaining Kurdish people of Afrin and change its demographic composition, and everyone knows that the largest mass displacement process during the Syrian crisis took place in Afrin.”
