This is popular front a podcast focused on the niche details of modern warfare and

underreported conflict with me Jake Hanrahan.

Today we're speaking to with me Jake Hanrahan.

Today we're speaking to independent researcher Megan Badeh

and she's going to be talking to us about the missing women of Afrin.

Afrin being the Kurdish city in Syria that is currently

occupied by a Turkish-backed militants. It has been for two years now and in that

time many women have gone missing they've been kidnapped

tortured and forced into sex trafficking

there's not a lot of attention being brought to it for some reason so Megan has been

doing a lot of research she's going to be telling us what's going on.

Apologies for the sound in this episode. I don't know why my laptop recorded the

laptop audio and not the mic, but Megan sounds fine. Support us at Patreon.com

slash Popular Front.

So I think before we get into the project that you're doing and the missing women in Afrin,

maybe you can just give us some context and explain what has happened there for anyone that doesn't know and what is know what is continuing to happen who is there who's

controlling the area that sort of thing yeah so Afrin is a majority Kurdish region in

northwestern Syria right on the border with Turkey. It was one of the first

regions in 2011-2012 when Syrian Kurds were able to push the Syrian government out and start setting up their own structures that had the new administration in that way.

Demographically, it is nearly 90% Kurdish the highest estimates say with

Yazidi minorities, Al-Alevi minorities, some other communities living there and it was one of the most peaceful and stable regions throughout the conflict

because the ISIS fight never really got there.

...