Kikoler also pointed to the Uyghur women in China facing forced birth control, forced implantations of IUDs, and forced sterilization in order to “restrict the reproductive capacity of a community.”
For a third example, she pointed to the targeting of certain hospitals and maternity hospitals in Afghanistan used by the Hazara Shi’a Muslim minority to give birth.
Personal stories
Azra Jafari, the first and only female mayor in Afghanistan, belongs to the Hazara ethnic group, which has endured oppression from the Taliban. From 2008-2014, she served as the mayor of Nili, a town in Daykundi province.
Jafari spoke to CNA about the religious persecution that women face.
“Unfortunately, most of the time women in religious countries always are bounded by the name of the religious,” she said. “Every bounding, rule, law, or regulation that they put on women in religious countries, they excuse it as the religion. So, they don’t want women be in charge.”
She pointed to her life as an example of introducing change, despite being discriminated against as both a woman and a Hazara.
Another woman belonging to a minority group, Pari Ibrahim, spoke about the persecution of her people. A Yazidi, Ibrahim pointed to when the Islamic State arrived to “eradicate” the Yazidis of nothern Iraq in August 2014.
“The men were killed immediately and then the women had to suffer more and are still till this day suffering,” the founder and executive director of the Free Yezidi Foundation said.
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She said that the women were enslaved, raped, sold as sex slaves, forced to marry ISIS fighters.
“Unimaginable things happened to them and, yes, I see a difference in the sense that women are being used to harm the community as a whole more,” she said.
Ibrahim told the story of one Yazidi woman whom she helped. When she first met this woman, she saw that while her body was present, her soul was gone — dead. Ibrahim invited her to meet other Yazidi women, but this woman responded that she had nothing left to live for, with her family killed. Ibrahim eventually convinced her to come, and the experience changed her life. She decided to learn English. She decided to get involved in the community.
While she once wore only black clothing, she now embraced color.
‘Foot of the cross’