Page 14 - C.A.L.L. #45 - Summer 2019

Welcome to Jinwar, a women-only village in
Syria that wants to smash the patriarchy
By Richard Hall
2 December 2018
The Independent
At the end of a long dusty road in the
plains of northern Syria, a young woman
with a rifle over her shoulder guards the
entrance to the isolated village of Jinwar.
Thirty brick houses lie beyond the gate,
decorated with splashes of purple and blue.
They surround a large plot of agricultural
land where rows of vegetables are growing.
A war zone perhaps isn’t the most obvious
setting for a feminist utopia. But here, in a
far corner of a country that has been
devastated by ongoing conflict, a group of
women have created an escape from the
chaos around them. Built over the past two
years, this small hamlet is a self-
sustaining, ecological idyll where women
rule and men cannot stay.
“There’s no need for men here, our lives
are good,” says Zainab Gavary, a 28-year-
old resident. “This place is just for women
who want to stand on their feet.”
Jinwar is a women-only commune a few
miles from Qamishli, a city in the mainly
Kurdish region of northeast Syria. It was
set up by local women’s groups and
international volunteers to create a space
for women to live “free of the constraints
of the oppressive power structures of
patriarchy and capitalism”.
The entrance to Jinwar, a women-only village
in northern Syria
The homes here were built by the women
who are now living in them. Murals and
statues of women at work are scattered
around the site, in the centre of which is a
garden of meadow flowers. It’s a jarring
contrast to the villages that surround it.
That it was built in northern Syria is no
coincidence. Just a few years ago, the
entire area lived under the shadow of the
Isis caliphate. The jihadist group captured
large swathes of territory when it made
lightning advances to the south and to the
east of the Kurdish region, and across the
border into Iraq.
It made its capital in Raqqa, just a few
hours away by car, and carried out one of
its most heinous atrocities in the town of
Sinjar less than a hundred miles east.
Thousands of Yazidis were massacred, and
still thousands more women were kidnapped