Surviving Women as a Model

Vinos Fayaq.

Written by Vinos Fayaq 
Translated by Narmeen Othman Mohammad

Addressing the Long-Term After-Effects of Genocide

When we speak of treatment, we mean the recovery of these women and empowering them so they can take steps towards overcoming the trauma they experienced and begin to heal.

All peoples who have faced genocide throughout history have needed long periods to rebuild their social lives — especially the lives of those who survived after their loved ones were lost. This process of rebuilding social life does not occur automatically; it requires supportive and strengthening factors to transform survivors’ lives from a dramatic, catastrophic state into a restoration of dignity and self-confidence so they may continue living after their human, material, and moral losses.

This is by no means simple. Even someone who loses a single family member suffers severe psychological distress and breakdown — let alone someone who has personally survived such crimes, lived through every stage of the catastrophe in reality, endured fear, displacement, uprooting, the loss of close and distant relatives, and the destruction of their entire environment. These survivors therefore require serious surrounding support — materially and morally — to pass this phase, move into a new stage of life, and reorganise daily living details. All of this depends on many human, legal, institutional, and governmental factors.

How can we treat the catastrophic consequences of the Kurdish genocide?

Particularly the surviving women — those who lost numerous family members because of these crimes. This is not discrimination; however, this article focuses specifically on women because they differ from men in many respects, especially those who are uneducated, powerless, and socially vulnerable, with limited awareness and lacking the psychological tools to express their pain except through crying and lamentation.

These women were left alone after the loss of fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons — their protectors and providers. Men may, for certain reasons, sometimes cope more easily with harsh experiences, but women — especially those we discuss — due to their upbringing and the nature of the society in which they were raised, often find no outlet except recounting stories, weeping, and mourning to obtain slight relief, yet without true healing.

They did not merely experience a shocking event; they lost entire communities around them. Their sense of safety was shattered, leaving a deep wound within them filled with memories of collapse and confusion. Therefore, addressing the consequences of these crimes requires a comprehensive, long-term, culturally sensitive treatment.

Recovery?

When we speak of treatment, we mean healing these women and empowering them to move beyond the trauma they endured.

Imagine telling a woman: all four of your sons, your husband, your father, and your brothers were killed in the Anfal campaigns. Such news requires a heart of stone to bear. Most of these women fell into prolonged depression.

During one of my visits to the Garmian areas affected by Anfal, a woman told me words that deeply affected me:

“I feel terrible — as if God left me alone. I betrayed them by staying alive. I should have died with them.”

This is survivor’s guilt — a state where life loses meaning, leaving constant fear and unrest. Social relationships are replaced by sitting at the door waiting for their return, while knowing they will never return.

In many visits I saw a painful silence on the faces of women. My interpretation: their pain was greater than language itself. No words can fully express it. These women are not weak — these are normal reactions to extraordinary catastrophe.

I myself needed years before I could write what I am writing now, due to what I witnessed and heard. How then can those who actually lived the disaster recover easily? They need genuine, compassionate treatment from every aspect.

Before anything else, they need safety.

Recommended Therapeutic Approaches

- Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT)
Helps understand reactions, reduce fear and nightmares, and process memories without being overwhelmed.
- Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Effective for traumatic memories and horrific scenes witnessed.
- Somatic Therapy
Because trauma settles in the body. Survivors learn breathing, relaxation, and reconnecting with bodily awareness.
- Group Grief Therapy
They lost not individuals but entire families and villages — even history. Group sessions allow shared narration when they are ready.
- Collective remembrance rituals
Prayers, visiting mass graves, annual commemorations — these transform personal pain into recognised collective memory.

These women must rebuild identity after genocide, whose primary aim was the destruction of identity itself. They should be encouraged to transmit culture to younger generations: language, songs, stories, and participation in community activities.

They are not merely victims — they are carriers of historical memory of a painful national stage.

Healing does not mean forgetting the past; it means learning to live with it.

They also need vocational training and small projects to regain purpose and balance. It is vital they do not unconsciously transfer trauma to their children so a psychologically healthy generation may emerge.

Finally — who among us, who did not live the catastrophe, was not relieved when the Iraqi Parliament recognised the Anfal campaign and the Halabja chemical attack as genocide? Even more comforting is seeing perpetrators prosecuted — this has profound psychological impact on survivors. It confirms what happened was not fate, but a crime.

The goal is not for these women to forget — pain remains — but that it no longer dominates their entire lives, allowing them to continue living with a degree of normality.