Yazidi Genocide: The Girl Who Escaped ISIS

Photo: Geneva Summit

WHO

Farida Abbas Khalaf

 WHERE

At the 10th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy "The Girl Who Escaped ISIS" panel. Farida was interviewed by British television and radio broadcaster and journalist, Jonny Gould.

WHAT

Iraq is home to 500,000-700,000 Yazidis. On August 3, 2014, ISIS invaded and took over the Kocho, Sinjar, village in Northern Iraq, home to 400,000 Yazidi. ISIS viewed Yazidis as "devil worshippers" due to their links to other religions and mysticism thus ISIS sought to erase them if they refused to convert to Islam. Within days, 10,000 Yazidis had been reportedly killed or kidnapped. Although this in itself constitutes genocide as defined by article 2 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, it wasn't until June 2016 that the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that ISIS, was in fact, committing genocide against Yazidis.

WHY

Farida is one of more than 6,500 Yazidi survivors of ISIS enslavement and genocide. After the attack on her village, she was captured and taken to Raqqa, Syria where she was sold and repeatedly beaten, raped, and abused for three gruesome months before escaping with five other girls. Although her two younger brothers and mother were rescued six months later, the fate of her father and older brother remains unknown although believed dead.

Since her escape, Farida has been an active member of Yazda, a global advocacy campaign that works to bring ISIS militants to justice and bring international attention to the Yazidi genocide. She has written The Girl Who Beat ISIS, a book which has been published in more than fourteen countries, and filmed a documentary With Words Against the IS – a Yazidi raises the Voice recounting her story. She continues to fight for her people's plight by speaking all over Europe testifying at the Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe, and in countries such as Poland where she was the winner of the 2017 Polish Foreign Minister's Pro Dignitate Humana Prize; the United Kingdom, where she was awarded the 2017 Marsh Award; and in Spain, where she received the 2017 LiberPress Award.

SPEECH EXCERPTS:

We didn’t accept to convert [to Islam]. As a result … they started killing men, many men. One day it was more than 140 men, including my father and 2 of brothers, one lf them survived. 

Before being abducted, my dad would tell me I was brave and strong. When I was abducting, I would think about what he told me to keep me alive. I tried to commit suicide seven times and I tried to escape two times – the third time I succeeded.  Every girl who escaped have suffered a lot I am not the only brave and strong woman. 

Imagine that you are in my position where you have been abducted, raped, your father and brother killed, your whole family in captivity, your whole community still suffering, and you have tried to travel to the world and speak and repeat the same story again and again but you don’t really see the results - what  are you going to do? 

I'm not going to give you a beautiful speech but some facts: if you go back a few years two or three Yazidi women came to speak. All of them asked for the same thing (help from the international community), this means not a lot has changed. About 80% of Yazidis live in camps, there is no real actions to rebuild their area or protect it, survivors are still in captivity. 

As human beings we should feel ashamed, and international leaders should feel ashamed. There are many Farida’s in the Yazidi community who come year after year with the same requests… I hope next year I will not come to share the same tragic story, but to thank you. 

WHAT ARE WARNING SIGNS OF GENOCIDES?

Not addressing long term grievances and patterns of rapid impunity in a country, discrimination and marginalisation are what contributes and leads to mass atrocities says Naomi Kikoler, Deputy Director of the Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Once killings have begun, there is a higher political cost, and it is more difficult to take action. Our World In Data has thorough descriptions and explanations of genocides throughout the 20th century, including the four types of killings that target particular groups of people for their ethnicity, religion, or political beliefs.


WHAT CAN WE DO?

Although we do not know how many genocides have taken place during humanity's history, they have occurred throughout the world and within different types of cultures and civilisations; the most renown ones being: the Armenian genocide (1915-1923); the Holocaust (1933-1945); Cambodian genocide (1975-1979); the Rwandan genocide (1994), the Bosnian genocide (1992-1995), and the Darfur genocide (2003-ongoing) - not forgoing conflicts in Yemen, Burma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and many more that pass under the radar.

Genocides are not history, they are a part of the human experience. It seems like 70 years after the largest genocide, we have had more international policies put in place to prevent this from happening but have also had less political will to act and uphold those commitments. If governments do not take action to prevent and stop genocides from occurring, they will metastasize into worldwide refugees flow, proliferation of sex trade and illicit drugs, says Kikoler.


We live in a world where we are saturated with atrocious images, news and stories. How much do we have to put out there until people finally say "Enough"? These images and stories should not even be used to make someone care. Take action, and stay informed. There are many ways to be involved and many organisations that work toward protecting the vulnerable and work toward ending genocides.