Milan, Sept. 25 – Ela Elyakim and Aviva Siegel met again in Milan after having shared part of their captivity at the hands of Hamas. Their voices, together with those of Fawzia Amin Sido, Husna Jalal and Elaheh Tavakolyan, shaped “Women: Freedom Is Always in Fashion”, a conference organised by the Milton Friedman Institute during Milan Fashion Week.
Ela was eight years old when she was abducted on October 7, 2023, from Kibbutz Nahal Oz together with her sister Dafna. An Israeli and Italian citizen, she recalled the 51 days she spent in captivity. “They took us to a kind of cage, like the ones used for dogs, only a little bigger.” Part of her detention was spent underground. Asked what had given her the strength to endure, she replied: “My sister.”
Aviva Siegel, abducted the same day with her husband Keith, recalled Ela sitting on her lap while the captors told the two girls that Israel no longer existed and that they would have no home to return to. “Ela could not stop crying.” Siegel also described the hunger and the fear that her husband might die. “I did not want to see him dead. The only thing I kept thinking was: please, let me die first.”
Another account of prolonged captivity came from Fawzia Amin Sido, a Yazidi from Sinjar abducted by Islamic State in 2014 at the age of 10. She said she was separated from her brother, sold, chained, beaten and tortured. In 2020, she was taken to Gaza and, according to her testimony, forced under threat to marry a jihadist and have two children. “I am not here to ask for your compassion. I am asking for humanity,” she said after being freed 10 years after her abduction.
Iran was represented by Elaheh Tavakolyan, who opened her remarks by raising her fist and asking the audience: “Do you see a terrorist?” She said she had taken to the streets with her daughters during protests and had been hit. “Woman, Life, Freedom. Freedom for Iran,” she said. When one of her daughters asked why she was protesting, Tavakolyan said she replied: “For freedom. So that you do not become like our generation, repressed and forced into silence.”
From Afghanistan, Husna Jalal, founder of Women for Change International and now based in the Netherlands, denounced the exclusion of girls from education beyond the sixth grade and restrictions imposed by the Taliban. She described the situation of Afghan women as “gender apartheid”. “Extremist ideologies do not respect borders,” she warned, before addressing Europe directly: “We fled our country. Where are we supposed to go now, to Mars?”
The event was held at the Assolombarda Congress Centre and was structured around four panels on women’s freedom, terrorism, security and the right to choose. The proceedings were opened by Dario Peirone, director general of the Milton Friedman Institute, while Alessandro Bertoldi, the Institute’s executive director, oversaw the organisation of the event.
Institutional participants included senators Mariastella Gelmini, Elena Murelli and Daniela Santanchè, MP Alessia Ambrosi, and Lombardy regional councillors Giulio Gallera, Sergio Gaddi and Marco Bestetti. Former MP Roberto Bagnasco introduced the first panel, saying that “Iran’s destiny belongs only to its people”.
The second panel focused on violence against women during the October 7 attacks and the subsequent captivity of hostages. It was moderated by Mediaset journalist Francesco Vecchi. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, director of the Rackman Center at Bar-Ilan University and co-founder of the Dinah Project, outlined efforts to collect and document evidence of sexual violence.
In the panel “Women and Security: Universal Rights”, Senator Elena Murelli said that “there can be no freedom without security”, linking the issue to women’s economic independence. Manel Msalmi focused on Islamist networks in Europe and on European Muslims opposing extremism, calling for greater scrutiny of organisations that, according to her remarks, support Hamas.
The final session, moderated by journalist Barbara Politi and preceded by a short presentation of the “Lux” line, linked the theme of freedom to Milan Fashion Week. Designer Chiara Boni described fashion as a “mirror of its time”, capable of reflecting social change and women’s emancipation.
Farnoush Hamidian, an Iranian-born model and actress, brought the discussion back to everyday life. “There is nothing more precious for an Iranian woman than freedom,” she said. Being able to laugh in public, dance and feel the wind in your hair, she explained, ultimately means “having the right to choose what to do, what to be and how to live.”
