{"id":1719,"date":"2026-03-02T18:58:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/?p=1719"},"modified":"2026-03-02T18:58:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:58:02","slug":"long-live-march-8th-international-womens-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/2026\/03\/02\/long-live-march-8th-international-womens-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Long live March 8th, International Women\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Protecting Women is Protecting Society!<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

March 8th is the day when the movement for equality and freedom for women takes to the streets against the oppression, cruelty, exploitation, and disenfranchisement of women. It is a day dedicated to achieving comprehensive equality between women and men in all spheres of life – social, political, economic, legal, and cultural. It is a day to stand against the customs, ideas, traditions, and the culture of capitalist power, which -to maintain and preserve the pillars of this exploitative, discriminatory, and unequal system – has kept women in an inferior, second-class social status. Therefore, the struggle to end social inequality between women and men is tied to the dismantling of the capitalist system that has imposed its power over society.<\/span><\/h3>\n

Today, International Women\u2019s Day is observed in a context where women and young girls are on the front lines as victims of the capitalist class system, led and managed by national and religious fascism and racism. In addition to domestic and social violence, women receive lower wages compared to men and face sexual harassment in the workplace. This is alongside the bitter realities faced by workers in general and foreign migrant women workers in particular. Wars, instability, and political and military conflicts have stolen the lives of women and children. The soul-crushing files of Jeffrey Epstein are a disgusting example of how capitalists, presidents, high-ranking officials, and free-market monopolies overlook sexual assault and the trafficking of women and girls for their shared interests. From Palestine to Afghanistan, from Iran to Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, women are systematically oppressed, killed, and subjected to violence, inequality, lack of rights, discrimination, and reactionary forces. The Epstein case and the killing of women in Kurdistan and Iraq are both symptoms of a global system for which women pay the price. Therefore, initiating a universal and global struggle to overturn this system – under which life for women and humanity has become a great stain of shame on the forehead of human society – has become an unavoidable necessity!<\/span><\/h3>\n

In Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, the situation of women is an ugly reflection of the power held by reactionary, nationalist, and political Islamic forces. Individual and civil rights, and women\u2019s rights specifically, are not only non-existent, but thousands of women have been killed under the pretexts of “honour” and “reputation.” The marriage of 9-year-old girls has been legalized under the name of the “Jaafari Personal Status Law.” Dozens of women have been forced into self-immolation. According to statistics from women\u2019s organizations on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, 53 women were killed in Kurdistan last year alone. The waves of character assassination, intellectual terrorism, defamation, and insults targeting female activists, women’s organizations, and female figures in political, economic, social, and organizational fields are on the rise. The authorities in Iraq and Kurdistan are not only indifferent to the tragedies committed against women, but they themselves are behind the issuance of these laws and regulations, maintaining a backward patriarchal culture and giving a free hand to religious figures and preachers who promote insults, humiliation, and violence against women, and attack the bodies of women through legal articles.<\/span><\/h3>\n

Despite this heart-wrenching situation for women and the oppression, disenfranchisement, and repressive, backward nature of the authorities in Iraq and Kurdistan, women workers, the downtrodden, the equality movement, and women\u2019s organizations have not surrendered. They represent another side of the reality of society in Kurdistan\u2014one characterized by the freedom-loving and humanitarian traditions of women. This is an undeniable reality of Kurdish society, where the social resistance of women and their refusal to submit to the force of authority and reactionary laws has become a source of concern for the ruling powers and the reactionary front of society.<\/span><\/h3>\n

The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR), which has always stood and struggled to remove threats to women\u2019s lives and opposed violence and honour killings, fights alongside women\u2019s activists and freedom-seekers to establish full rights for women and to ensure they are treated as equal citizens within society.<\/span><\/h3>\n

On March 8th this year, the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees\u2014aiming to change the conditions under which women in Iraq and Kurdistan live, which has also had a negative impact about refugee women abroad\u2014expresses its full support for the efforts and activities of women\u2019s organizations and the March 8th Network in Kurdistan. We call upon women\u2019s organizations, activists, and humanitarian organizations worldwide to support, by any means possible, the abolition of the Jaafari Law by the Iraqi Parliament and to hold the authorities in Iraq and Kurdistan accountable for the disenfranchisement, violence, and killing of women. We urge support for the establishment of a modern, humanitarian, and equal law to secure women’s rights and to support the following demands:<\/span><\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. \n

    The abolition of the Jaafari Law in the Iraqi Parliament, which legalizes the marriage of 9-year-old girls.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \n

    The abolition of the polygamy law in the Kurdistan Parliament.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  3. \n

    The prohibition of incitement to violence against women, and legal punishment for the clerics and preachers who engage in such acts.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  4. \n

    Treating the killing of women as a major crime; killers of women must not be eligible for any amnesty laws and must receive their full punishment.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  5. \n

    The replacement of the Iraqi Parliament’s Jaafari Law with a modern, humanitarian law that guarantees comprehensive equality between women and men.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Defending women and their rights is defending the protection of society!<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

    \u00a0<\/strong><\/span>International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR)<\/strong><\/span>
    \n02\/03\/2026<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Protecting Women is Protecting Society! March 8th is the day when the movement for equality and freedom for women takes to the streets against the oppression, cruelty, exploitation, and disenfranchisement of women. It is a day dedicated to achieving comprehensive equality between women and men in all spheres of life – social, political, economic, legal, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-home","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.federationifir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}