Fearless Women in Turkish Kurdistan

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For decades, Turkey’s Kurds have been struggling against a state that used to deny their very existence as a separate people. More than 40,000 people have died – and hundreds of villages have been destroyed – in the war between the Turkish army and the militant Kurdish group, the PKK. But now, just when Kurds in neighbouring Iraq are considering establishing an independent state, and many believe the chaos in Syria will change borders across the region, Kurds in Turkey are increasingly reconciled to remaining within existing frontiers. As Turkey pursues peace talks with the PKK, the militant movement’s supporters talk of changing society, not borders. And already, they have initiated some radical experiments. Pro-PKK towns and villages across eastern Turkey are now each governed by two co-mayors, male and female, and the new system has propelled many dynamic young women into power in regions that were once socially conservative. One is a survivor of domestic violence determined to use her position to encourage other women to speak up about what untill now has been a taboo subject. She is not just the first woman mayor of her town, but also the first woman ever to get a divorce there. Tim Whewell travels to the region to meet her and other social reformers, and discover why so many of Turkey’s Kurds say they have turned their back on nationalism, and want to express their identity in ways they say are more modern. Producers: Charlotte Pritchard and Guney Yildiz. (Photo: Berivan Elif Kilic who became the co-mayor of Kurdish Town of Kocaköy, Diyarbakir. BBC Copyright)