The revolutionary women of Rojava are in grave danger. That has consequences for us all | Natasha Walter

"A year ago, I was in north-east Syria, in the Kurdish-dominated area known as Rojava, listening to some of the most determined women that I have ever met. On my first day there, I went to a huge conference where one after another, women in Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian dress roused the audience to chants of Jin! Jiyan! Azadi! (Woman! Life! Freedom)!."

"Its commitment to equal rights has been remarkable every institution it set up relied on power-sharing between men and women. No wonder many of the women I met there sounded optimistic about their future. This will be a century of women's freedom, one said to me. We are in solidarity with women in resistance throughout the world. Now, I'm getting messages from these women that speak of their despair. They say the future is dark. They speak of betrayal by the west. They say they face slaughter."

Women in Rojava rallied around the slogan Jin! Jiyan! Azadi! and helped build a decade-long autonomous administration (Daanes) that institutionalized gender equality through mandatory power-sharing between men and women. The administration's secular, decentralized model fostered optimism and international solidarity among women activists. That optimism has turned to fear as the Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, advances, shrinking autonomous territory and reclaiming non-Kurdish areas. Fears of massacres of minorities such as Alawites and Druze and reports of betrayal by the west deepen despair, yet women express ongoing determination to defend their autonomy.

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