Safe spaces for women in Iraq

Hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons live in Kurdistan, an autonomous region in northern Iraq. Many of them are Yazidi women. Terrorist militias operated by the Islamic State have carried out particularly brutal persecution of the Yazidi minority. The Back to Life project run by Háwar.help, a German NGO, provides help and protection for them. 

Háwar.help was set up by the journalist and human rights activist Düzen Tekkal. In 2018 it opened its first women’s centre in a refugee camp in northern Iraq. Through the Back to Life project, women receive psychosocial support to help them process traumatic experiences. They can play sports together and take part in a range of courses which are aimed at opening up new prospects for the future. Back to Life not only runs courses in English, Arabic and IT, but also creative sewing and knitting courses. The project sells the products through its own shops, where the participants can also gain work experience.  

Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock became patron of Back to Life in 2021. A second women’s centre has since been opened in the region. In 2022 alone, just under a thousand women and girls accessed services run by Back to Life. 

Helping more women to benefit from the project 

“Through our work with vulnerable women in conflict and post-conflict regions, we have been able to gain a great deal of experience in recent years. Building on this, we’re expanding our activities so more women can benefit,” says Pia Walter, head of the international programme at Háwar.help.  

One example is the safe house which Back to Life recently set up in the Afghan capital of Kabul. It offers protection to women fleeing domestic violence and forced marriage. Háwar.help is currently attempting to get permission from the Iraqi government to start work in Sinjar, the region from which the Yazidi people come and to which many thousands of displaced persons have already returned. 

In March 2023, Back to Life opened a new site in the centre of the city of Dohuk in northern Iraq. “The population of this city is even more diverse than in the camps, where the majority of people are Yazidis,” says Pia Walter. She stresses that this fits well with the central plank of Háwar.help’s approach, which is to promote reconciliation between religions and ethnic groups and to bring people together. “We’re creating safe spaces,” she says, “where members of different groups can come together to find solutions for a better future.” 

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