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The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
Barış the Ragdoll: I’D WANT HIM TO HAVE AT LEAST ONE LEG - “My father was a village guard when I was growing up. He stepped on a land-mine during one of his rounds and lost both of his legs. My mother looked after us. The doll I made has one leg. Because that’s how I imagined it. I wish nothing more than my father to have at least one leg… And my mother, she’s standing behind him. She was the most unselfish person I have ever seen.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
Bergen the Ragdoll: SLIT DOWN THE SIDE, ARMS NOT COVERED! - “I was 17 years old. Some guy started following me and my friend as we were walking down the street. He started making a move towards my friend, and I stepped in to protect her. He attacked me, grabbed my throat. That day I started to think that beauty wasn’t such a good thing. One day, my friend told me the story of the singer Bergen. I identified with the story of how her boyfriend had thrown nitric acid on her face because of her beauty. I named this doll ‘Bergen.’ Bergen changed my life. I overcame what I had been through as I gave life to her. I made a long slit down the side of her dress and left her arms exposed. I saw this as a victory.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
Birgül the Ragdoll: HE BEAT ME FOR NOT DYING - “I was a single woman at the age of 28. My family kept pressuring me to get married. I finally did. We had two children, my husband didn’t work. I wanted to get a divorce, I couldn’t. I even had to pay to feed his gambling addiction. I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 40 but I beat it. Turns out, my husband wanted me dead. He had already made other marriage arrangements. When he found out that I wasn’t going to die, he beat me terribly.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
The Captive Ragdoll: I SUFFERED EVERY DAY - “I was forced by my parents to be taken from school at the age of 13, and was married officially by an Imam. My husband constantly inflicted violence upon me. I thought about getting a divorce but my family told me that I could only return back home if I left my children with my husband. I had three children, I couldn’t abandon and leave them; I suffered every single day. I never felt free; I have made the invisible chains that bind me to my husband visible with the help of this doll.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
The president of the Women Joint Cooperation Association of Mardin, Hülya Aydın, is the daughter of one of the well-known families in Mardin. She graduated from University, then fell in love with a reformist man and got married. But her husband stopped her from working and didn’t let her contact her family because they had a right-wing political view. He then committed suicide and died. She, along with her four-year-old daughter, began her struggle in life and opened a womans’ center: “Here, we teach women their rights. None of these women know what love is. During the course of this project we have educated 160 people and made almost 140 dolls. We are extremely pleased with the result.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
The Red Ragdoll: RED CLOTHING IS FORBIDDEN - “When I was a child, red was my favourite colour and I used to wear red clothes and matching jewelry. When I turned 14 my family forbid me to wear red clothes, put on red lipstick or red jewelry. I would be able to wear red when I turned 18 and got married, at least I hoped so. My husband however, didn’t let me just in case I drew too much attention. The red dress reflects my hopes and reminds me of my best childhood memories of my life.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
Leyla the Ragdoll: I WAS BEATEN EVERYTIME I GAVE BIRTH TO GIRLS - “I was married at a very young age. I was only 14. Then I fell pregnant. Then again and again… I always had girls. Every time I gave birth to a little girl I came home to violence and humiliation. My husband’s family said ‘She is useless,’ and tried to get their son to take a second wife. I was pregnant with my fifth baby. Technology had improved by then and you could learn the sex of the baby before it was born. My husband threw me to the ground and beat me upon hearing he would father yet another girl. Thankfully I didn’t lose my baby. I suffered a lot; now my girls are all grown up. I and my husband are like two strangers living in the same house. My girls are everything to me. If I had had a son, he wouldn’t have been as supportive. They know what their father has done and they protect me.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
Necla the Ragdoll: I AM GOING TO BREAK THE CHAINS AROUND MY WRISTS WITH EDUCATION - “I am one of seven siblings. Five of us are girls. None of us have been to school. Not sending girls to school is a tradition here anyway. My father or my mother wasn’t the one that stopped me from going to school, it was my uncle. But I persisted. Despite all the objections, I got a distanced education. I am 22 years old; I have got as far as high school. I am Necla the Ragdoll, my hands are in chains. I will break free of those chains when I graduate from school. Families don’t count us as people. They take the boys to school themselves, but don’t really care about us as we’re going to get married anyway. But I persevered, I am going to succeed.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
Psychologist Nalin Aydın Kılıç said the women are uncovering the situations they had failed to internalize while making these dolls: “The women have realised that violence towards women is not limited to their own lives thanks to the dolls that led to group psychotherapy. Most surprising was that even though they were produced by different people, the stories showed similarities and can be collected under three main groups. The past ‘I.’ the present ‘I’ and the ‘I’ they want to be… The perception of time is actually a way of comparing one slice of time with another. The women took advantage of this method successfully.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
"...My husband constantly makes fun of me, humiliates me. When I go cleaning houses I realize that I am not alone, many other overweight women are going through the same things. Women are bending over backwards for their families to the point of suffocation.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
Zekiye the Ragdoll: WE ARE SUFFOCATING OURSELVES BY BENDING OVER BACKWARDS - “My husband hasn’t worked since the day we got married. I clean houses as a way to earn money for us. We have two children. I look older than my age because of all the long years I spent working myself to the point of exhaustion. I have put on weight because of the children."
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
The Sabancı Foundation has conducted many projects, including opening an all-girl hostel and even a museum which have changed the face of the city Mardin. The general manager of the Sabancı Foundation, Zerrin Koyunsağan, was as excited as any woman who had got their self-confidence back, gained self-awareness and started to dream when she said they have happily added this project to their grant program: “Our main goal was for the 160 women who took part in this project to be enlightened, to have a counselling service for those who needed it and for the willing to share the violence they had been subjected to with each other by making these dolls. We have reached our goal.”
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
The poet Murathan Mungan spoke of Mardin as a “…place of my childhood, where I first counted the stars in the sky. I grew up in very harsh conditions. It taught me that the world isn’t such an easy place from very early on.” Mardin is a magical place. But like the poet said, very tough and harsh. Especially for the women who are imprisoned, denied education, beaten and humiliated inside those beautiful stone houses.
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
The heartbroken dolls of Mesopotamia
After variously being imprisoned, denied education, beaten and humiliated, a group of women in Mardin, a town in Turkey's southeast, have attended therapy sessions in which they express their sorrow by making ragdolls. Daily Hürriyet's İpek Özbey reports their stories.
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