The Women's Assembly of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) released the final declaration of the meeting held on 20 October.

Stating that women will be the pioneers of the anti-war struggle, it said, “We, women, will protect our lives and rights.”

“The war of male-dominated capitalist powers has deepened the oppression, violence and inequality experienced by women in our region and in the world,’ the declaration said.

Drawing attention to the wars in the Middle East, the Women's Assembly stated the following: “The wars of power and sharing, especially in the Middle East, return to the peoples and women in the region as more poverty, violence and exploitation. These wars have forced women to migrate and turned them into targets even more.

The Zionist Israeli regime wants to redesign the Middle East by dragging it into chaos. Israel's attacks on Palestine and Lebanon, the pulling of Iran into the war and the desire to liquidate different resistance foci in the region are the moves of the regime they want to create today. As a matter of fact, the AKP-MHP regime, worried that it will not be able to play any role in this design, is using all kinds of methods to disperse and pacify the anti-government bloc, especially our women's liberation struggle, in order to relieve its deadlock in domestic politics.

On the one hand, it consciously organises attacks against the slogan ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’ (Woman, Life, Freedom), which has become the symbol of universal and international women's struggle. It is clear that a joint united struggle of women against organised and rising male violence is essential. We will continue to shout the slogan ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’ wherever we are. We will expand an international network of women's organised resistance and struggle against these policies of violence and oppression.”

Stating that women will build an honourable peace movement against wars, the DEM Party Women's Assembly stated the following:

“In this context, the democratic solution of the Kurdish question is at the centre of women's anti-war struggle and has an important role in ensuring social peace. This struggle is a resistance of women, not only for their rights but also for laying the foundations of social peace and justice.

We will build an honourable peace together against the fascist regime that insists on war by attacking mothers who want peace in Silopi, carrying out daily operations against our party, legitimising male violence with impunity policies and deepening the isolation.

The situation of Mr Öcalan, who is kept in isolation in İmralı Island Prison, reveals the fascist character of this regime. Violence against women, massacres and women's poverty deepen in parallel with the isolation, the monist policies of the government continue to oppress all segments of society.”

The final declaration continued: “Femicides are not singular and individual events; these murders are the result of the policies of the male-dominated system. Especially the blood-curdling murders of women and children that we have witnessed in the 10 months of 2024, resembling a balance sheet of war, and the impunity rewards for the perpetrators in the ongoing femicide cases despite all this, have paved the way for an increase in such murders. In Kurdistan, Rojin Kabaiş was not found for 18 days. At least 4 women are murdered by men every day, children are abused and the country has turned into a country of murdered and disappeared women.

The vital importance of the Istanbul Convention, which has a preventive and protective function against violence, has been realised again with the increasing number of femicides and the implementation of the convention will continue to be an important part of our struggle.

We will increase our struggle against policies that legitimise the massacres of women through impunity policies. 

The special war policies of the AKP-MHP fascist government continue to target young women. The abuse incidents at Harran and Munzur Universities are the clearest examples of these special war policies. We will not allow these gangs to walk freely in society. From Hakkari to Istanbul, from Mersin to Urfa, wherever we are, we will enhance our struggle against the gang-mafias empowered by the state through solidarity with young women.

As a result of neoliberal capitalist policies, the health and lives of society, women and children have been targeted through widespread privatisation under the name of transformation in health.

The gangs recently exposed with the murders of babies in newborn units are indicative of the corrupt and rotten order created by capitalist neoliberal policies. The ties of these gangs that murder babies with many levels of the state have been one of the most horrifying images of this order that murders women. In response to all these incidents, we will hold these gangs and their political extensions to account.

We will continue to struggle together to make a new independent life possible for women with disabilities, who are isolated from all areas of economic, social, cultural and political life in the presence of a negative disability culture built with the ideology of sure-footedness. We will not allow speciesism and massacre laws.

We will continue to wage the strongest struggle against the derogation of women's labour, from domestic labour to precarious work in factories and on the streets. We will not allow women's labour to be usurped and women to be exploited further. As women working in agriculture, industry and homes, we will continue our struggle to embrace our labour.

We, women, will defend our lives and our rights. With the philosophy of ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’, we invite all women to join this struggle and increase our solidarity. Organised women are strong, we will continue to change through our organised power.”