Clarion: How the Islamic State’s Female Enemies Celebrated International Women’s Day

This article originally appeared at the Clarion Project:

In America, some attention-seeking activists purposely got arrested by blocking traffic outside the Trump International Hotel so they could later become the face of so-called gender oppression.

Their PR stunt stole attention from the most powerful symbols of feminism: women in the Middle East—Christians, Kurds, Arabs, Yazidis—risking their lives to vanquish Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) as a step towards starting a new era for women in the region.

The Iraqi and Syrian Christians who stare daily into the darkness of genocide have, after a long and bloody period of patience and non-violence, formed self-defense forces, including an all-female force in Syria.

The Beth Nahrin Women Protection Forces is a branch of the 2,000-strong Syriac Military Council, a Christian militia that says it includes Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs. The Christian force is part of a U.S.-backed coalition named the Syrian Democratic Forces that includes Kurds and Sunni Arabs and is marching on Raqqa, the “capitol” of ISIS’ “caliphate.”

Read the full story at the Clarion Project.