Armenian Genocide and women’s double pain – Kurdish journalist’s review

Mujgan Halis, an ethnic Kurdish journalist from Turkey, has devoted an article to women survivors of Armenian Genocide, their bitter experiences caused by rapes, violent conversion to Islam and enslaving.

The article, published in Demokrat Haber, is presented below.

The sexual aspect of the Armenian Genocide, reflected through the female being’s image, remains to date an ignored  memory. Yes, Genocide was a double pain for Armenian women, who simultaneously experienced rapes, forced marriages and enslaving.

Rapes

In 1915, the Armenian women expelled from their country also lost husbands, brothers and kids, becoming victims of repeated rapes …
 

Very few studies have been conducted into the matter so far. In their verbal stories, those who are still alive mitigate or circumvent the rapes. Women do not want to speak about that violence. The same sources say that men too, are reluctant to address the topic; they often say it is very difficult to recount [the bitter experience].

Kidnapped, Islamized women

Genocide caused Armenian women to also experience forced Islamization. Some 200,000 women are believed to have been converted to Islam, assimilated and acquired a Kurdish, Turkish or Arab “descent”…

The rapes committed against Armenian women were followed by forced marriages.

Islamized women forgot their identity and native tongue in the course of time. Many of them saw conversion to Islam as the only choice to save their loved ones.

Grandma’s Tattoos

The Islamized women who later married Muslim men would use henna, as was the tradition. But the henna or tattoos had a different significance [for them]. “Grandma’s Tattoo’s”, a movie by Syuzanne Khardalian, is devoted to that. It is about the thousands of forgotten women who survived the Armenian Genocide, those who “had to sell their bodies”. Their bodies bore tattoos to distinguish them from others.

Khardalian describes the movie as a journey into one family’s secret.

“Khanum nene (grandmother) was not like everybody. I remember her as a woman who had an evil heart. She hated physical contact. She never hugged or kissed anyone and always hid the tattoos on her hands. Now I know why my grandmother speaks Kusrdish so well. She was subjected to rape on the bank of Euphrates when she was 12. The Kurd who responded to her calls for help kidnapped her. She had to live with the man for seven years. Later, she managed to escape thanks to an English missionary. My grandma lived like a captive for years. She had not only her hands but also her fortune stamped; her memory bore the imprints of shame and fear,” says the director.

After World War I, Armenian unions and missionary organizations attempted to free kidnapped women.

Markets for captives

The markets for captives were another brutality Armenian women survived. One can read about this in Yves Ternon’s book about the Mardin Genocide.

The author says Armenian women were forced to work as sex-slaves.
 

Ternon was convinced that despite the 1909 official ban on slavery in the Ottoman Empire, those markets would open for Armenian women and children throughout the war.

The vendors wished to very quickly get rid of their “goods”; hence the price for the Armenians was very low. Children aged five to seven would sell for 5-20 Kurushes, the price of a lambkin. A young lady or a fellow aged 14-15 would find a buyer for two or three Mejdiyes (silver coin). The prices would change depending on the Armenian family’s position. Those who purchased those women or girls could later become the legal owners of their property.