Neslihan Kardaş

 

WAN - Berivan Tibelik, who had to struggle against many forms of violence from exile to prison, from judicial harassment to trustee pressure, talks about her life of struggle that started in her childhood and says, ‘As a woman, I will continue to fight for my freedom.’

 

While the government's violence against the Kurdish people affects women and children the most, the stories of children and women born and raised in Kurdistan are just as similar. Kurdish women, who struggle against all forms of violence, have been resisting both state and male violence for years.

 

As 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women approaches, women's lives of resistance inspire each other. One of these women is Berivan Tibelik, a volunteer activist at the Human Rights Association (IHD) Wan Branch, who was exposed to the violence of the government when she was still a baby and never gave up her struggle. Berivan Tibelik talked about violence and her resistance.

 

The common fate of many Kurdish children...

 

Berivan Tibelik, who was exposed to the violent face of the state when she was still a child, is just one of the countless children whose village was burnt down. Berivan Tibelik, who lived with her family in the village of Êzdinan (Konalga) in the district of Şax (Çatak) in the province of Wan, was forced to migrate after her village was burnt down. Berivan Tibelik, who moved to the centre of Wan after leaving the village, said, "I was still very young at that time. As a girl, I was a bit of a petulant child. I had a fighting spirit against life."

 

They returned to the burnt village

 

When she was 6 years old, Berivan Tibelik stated that they had returned to the village within the scope of a project initiated in 1999 and said, "When I went to the village, I could go out to the mountains, plains and plateaus without fear. In fact, I was doing work that was often described as “men's work”. While doing these, what interested me the most was that men were doing it and the question “why can't women do it” arose in my mind."

 

‘As women, we are always in a struggle’

 

Berivan Tibelik stated that they had to return to the centre of Wan in 2010 due to her father's health problems, and this time she started to struggle for her family. Berivan Tibelik's struggle for life, which started in her childhood, was added to the struggle against economic difficulties after moving to the city. Berivan Tibelik, who worked in many private sectors after coming to the city, said, "As I believed in myself, I actually achieved everything I wanted to achieve. After working in various private sectors, I applied for a job at the Wan Metropolitan Municipality in 2014. Then my job application was accepted. As women, we are always in a struggle. After I was hired at the municipality, I worked at the municipality for about three and a half years. Unfortunately, a trustee was appointed to the municipality in 2016."

 

‘They tried to destroy me for being a woman’

 

Noting that the trustees first targeted women and women's work, Berivan Tibelik said, "After the trustees arrived, they tried to target me as a woman. They wanted to do this by exiling me to different units of the organisation I worked for. First of all, they kept me away from the field I have been working in from the very beginning and took away all the powers I had. In doing so, their aim was actually to intimidate me and make me resign. But they failed, and the more they came at me, the more power it gave me."

 

Dismissed with a text message  

 

Describing the place where she was exiled by the trustee, Berivan Tibelik said, "Since this garage was a gathering area, it was an area where only men worked and about 100 men worked there. In fact, what they wanted to do in this garage was to intimidate me. They sent me there with the idea that ‘she cannot work in a place where only men work and she will resign’. I wanted to send the message that if I can work in an environment where more than 100 men work, so can my other women friends. But when the trustee administration saw my struggle, they could not digest this either, and they removed me from the garage and sent me to another unit of the municipality. They tried to intimidate me with transport problems in these new places I was sent to. But here, too, because I had the spirit of the free women's struggle, I started to struggle even more. When the management saw that I would not give up, they terminated my employment even though I was working and did not inform me at all. I learnt that my job was terminated three days before with a message on my phone."

 

Prison

 

While struggling with economic difficulties, Berivan Tibelik also faced harassment from the judiciary, and this time she was arrested with the allegation of ‘being a member of an illegal organisation’. Imprisoned for 10 months, Berivan Tibelik continues her struggle from here.

 

Message to women

 

Berivan Tibelik emphasised that she never gave up her struggle even after she was released from prison and that she would never give up from now on and said,"A woman's freedom is very important. I will always continue my women's struggle. I am now a volunteer activist at IHD. From here, I would like to tell all women to never give up their struggle. I will continue to fight for my freedom as a woman."