Around 100 German women left to fight for the “Islamic State” and half of them are under 25. Read more about it here, and other news about women that made it to the headlines.

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“The United Nations, the US, and countless other countries all know about what is happening to us. Everyone has acknowledged [the atrocities] publicly. We are peaceful people and we are being killed mercilessly,” Ameena Sawwan states.

A raging war in Syria has exposed countless women to mind-numbing violence. (© Russell Watkins/Department for International Development)

For Ameena Sawwan, the survivor of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, it was the Arab Spring that turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare in which she is trapped even today. What started off as peaceful protests against a repressive regime soon gave way to a series of retaliatory attacks by government forces. These days, a civil war rages in her country, a war  which has exposed countless citizens, particularly vulnerable women and children like Ameena and her little nieces and nephews, to mind-numbing violence.

Kurdish female fighters are the “Women of the week” in Women Talk Online. Female fighters play an important role in the Kurdish “Peshmerga” army, which is fighting tooth and nail to keep Islamic State militants at bay in Iraq and Syria.

“As ordinary women we have no value in society, but as fighters we are respected. ” Kurdish women in Syria prefer the hard life of a soldier rather than a normal family life with children.

Forced marriage involving minors is on the rise in the southeast of Turkey. Since the outbreak of civil war in neighboring Syria, desperate families fleeing the conflict have been selling their daughters to Turkish men.

Asma al Assad

Asma al Assad. Wife of Syria’s president, Bashar al Assad. Like many young Syrians, I believed in her. She was educated in England and ever since she became Syria’s first lady, she devoted herself to different civil projects. I liked how she took part in public life, helped out with women’s development projects and tried to be close to the Syrian people.This image lasted until the Syrian revolt began in March 2011.