From April 4-7, the 17th edition of the women's festival "A Weekend with Women" was held in the Occitania region of southern France, which also honored Kurdish women and highlighted on the genocides against the Kurds.
French Senator Rémi Féraud in a post on Facebook said the festival honored the Kurds with a cultural evening and conference “on the fate of women in the persecutions and genocides that the Kurds and Yezidis suffered in Iraq.”
Féraud is currently preparing a draft bill to recognize ISIS’s atrocities against the Yezidis in August 2024 as a genocide.
#Kurds with the history of Kurdish struggle, culture, and art brought #French attention to the Kurdish cause as part of the 17th edition of the event "A weekend with #women". The event will take place from April 4 to 7, 2024, in southern France's Occitan region. pic.twitter.com/0LoGWv2Q6p
— High Council for Women and Development (HCWD) (@HighHcwa) April 7, 2024
Furthermore, Dr. Khanzad Ahmed, Secretary General of the High Council for Women's Development, and Kurdish politician Chnar Saad Abdullah from the Kurdistan Region, also participated at the event.
Vers la reconnaissance du génocide Kurde
— Dr Nazand Begikhani (@NazandBegikhani) April 7, 2024
Grande honneur de participer au festival #UnWeekendAvecElles à #Albi, présentant le résultat de mes recherches sur les génocides Kurde & Yézidi avec @BeatriceDilles @RemiFeraud @DocteurTissot @ramond_christ et une délégation du @Kurdistan pic.twitter.com/MITqNx3Z6Z
Dr. Nazand Begikhani, holder of the Vincent Wright Chair and visiting professor at Sciences Po Paris and General Secretary of the Kurdish Institute of Paris, presented her research on the Kurdish and Yezidi genocides.
In an interview with the French journal La Dépêche du Midi published on April 1, she argued that women's bodies have been used in Iraq in war for decades, from the Ba’ath regime to ISIS.
In addition to systematic rape, other forms of sexual violence have been practiced against Kurdish women, such as sexual slavery and forced impregnation and prostitution.
"These acts are categorized as crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, but they are also acts of genocide: they consist of systematic, intentional, and well planned operations to eliminate an entire group because of their ethnic and religious identity," she said.
Moreover, French journalist Béatrice Dillies discussed her 2023 book, A Forgotten Genocide: The Broken Voice of the Kurdish People, at the event.
“I published a book about the Kurdish genocide in Iraq between 1968 and 2018. Consequently, my friends asked me to present my book at the festival and organize a two-day program around this theme but also Kurdish culture and history,” Dillies told Kurdistan Chronicle.
Read More: Postwar Middle East Genocide
“In fact, I was interviewed on April 2 by the Senate committee in charge of minorities and Kurds in the Middle East,” said Dillies. “All the senators on the committee had read my book.”
Dr. Nazand Begikhani was another participant at the event on April 2, who said that her arguments pertaining to sexual violence as a war strategy will also be used to support the case being put forth by the French Senate.
Meanwhile, Dillies added that Zoubeyr Mahy, president of the Franco-Kurdish Association of Occitania and co-organizer of the women’s festival, bought 1,000 books to offer one to all French deputies and senators.
“This book will support the argumentation in the text that recognizes the Yezidi genocide, which will be voted on by the French Senate in June or July 2024, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the ISIS attack,” she said.
In addition, the French Senate will vote on the official recognition of the genocide against Kurds during the time of Saddam.
Read More: Kurdistan Region Commemorates 36th Anniversary of Halabja Attack
The Kurdish genocide by the Iraqi regime began in 1963 with the Arabization of Kirkuk villages, which included the deportation and disappearances of Faili Kurds. It continued with the murder of 8,000 male Barzanis in 1983 and the use of chemical weapons in 1988 at Halabja and during the Anfal campaign.
To date, only six countries have partially recognized the Kurdish genocide. Iraq did so in 2010, followed by Norway, Sweden, England, and South Korea in subsequent years. Additionally, the Austrian Parliament recognized the genocide at Halabja in March 2023.
“France took 85 years to recognize the Armenian genocide in 1915. I am hopeful that recognition for the Kurdish genocide will come much sooner,” Dillies concluded.
