It is scary to realise that across the globe, many women and girls still face discrimination because of their gender. Still, it was even frightening when 19 girls were burnt alive for refusing to be sex slaves. Who were these girls, and why is there no public awareness about their horrible deaths?
There were Yazidis who were killed in 2014 during the Yazidi Genocide.
Yazidis are one of the most admirable people whom I have ever met.
The Yazidis are a small minority indigenous to Mesopotamia, united by their ethnic and religious identity. Yazidism shares elements with other Middle Eastern traditions as an ancient monotheistic religion. Still, it is set apart by its prayer rituals, a belief in reincarnation, and the central role of the Peacock Angel, Tawusi Malek, who is worshipped as a messenger to the Yazidi god.
Yazidis have been persecuted for centuries because of these unique tenets of their faith. Yazidi history recounts seventy-three instances of Genocide - the latest of which was conducted by ISIS. The constant threat of persecution led many Yazidis to settle in the northern region of Iraq (namely Sinjar), where the mountainous terrain provided some protection.
On August 3, 2014, Islamic State (ISIS) militants committed Genocide against the Yazidi community in Sinjar, northern Iraq. Yazidi men who refused to convert to Islam were executed and left in mass graves. An estimated 7,000 Yazidi women and girls, some as young as nine, were enslaved and forcibly transferred to locations in Iraq and eastern Syria. In sexual slavery, survivors reported being repeatedly sold, gifted, or passed around among ISIS fighters.
Captured women are treated as sex slaves or spoils of war; some are driven to suicide. Women and girls who convert to Islam are sold as brides; those who refuse to convert are tortured, raped, and eventually murdered. Babies are born in the prison where the women are taken from their mothers to an unknown fate.
In 2014, ISIS terrorists executed 19 Yazidi girls who refused to be sex slaves by burning them alive inside iron cages.
"The 19 girls were burned to death while hundreds of people watched. Nobody could do anything to save them from the brutal punishment," a witness said.
Yazidi survivors were taking refuge wherever they could. Even though IS was defeated in the area by late 2015, many Yazidis have been reluctant to return, given that Sinjar town was in ruins and abandoned outlying villages are overgrown with foliage.
However, about 30 per cent of the original population returned. Still, fairy tales did not happen, as Genocide by ISIS was followed by Turkish airstrikes, which took the lives of civilians. During one of these airstrikes, a 12-year-old boy was killed.
By referring to that tragic event, Nobel laureate Nadia Murad, a Yazidi genocide survivor who IS enslaved, said, "Sinjar once again fell prey to Turkish airstrikes, which took the life of a 12-year-old boy and critically wounded several others, including the boy's brothers. In the act of terrorism, this innocent child had his future stolen from him while sitting in his father's shop."
A prominent Yazidi activist, Murad Ismael, said: "The international community also has a moral responsibility towards Yazidis and the people of Sinjar. It is painful and illogical that these attacks go unaddressed as legitimate. It seems Turkey can get away with anything."
Of the 6,000 women and children taken into ISIS captivity, almost 3000 are still missing. For them, the violence of Genocide is not a memory but a daily reality. Thousands of survivors are mourning their relatives whose remains lie in unmarked and mass graves. Only a handful of graves have been exhumed. Living under Turkish airstrikes is unthinkable for those families hoping to return home to Sinjar.
By Dr. Anzhela Mnatsakanyan, a political researcher with a focus on Eastern Partnerships, Russia, the EU, and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
