These young Kurdish Iranian born women are between 18 and 30 years old. Frustrated by discrimination and suppression in Iran, they chose to join the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) founded in 1945, PDKI established the short-lived Republic of Kurdistan in 1946, which since then has become a reference point for the Kurdish people’s legitimate quest for self-determination. In the past seven decades, PDKI has survived the dictatorship of the Shah as well as the oppression and terrorist attacks of the Islamic Republic regime in Iran. Banned in Iran, PDKI has been forced to move its headquarters and non-clandestine organization to Iraqi Kurdistan, near the border.

Every year hundreds of young people join the ranks of PDKI to take part in the resistance against the Islamic Republic of Iran. An increasing number of PDKI’s new recruits are women. In PDKI’s military academy they train to become Peshmergas, meaning “those who face death”. Preparing themselves for the decades-long and ongoing struggle in pursuit of democracy in Iran and self-rule for Iranian Kurdistan.