Actions for trial in the Hague

JINHA

AMED - After the massacre of the Êzidî people one year ago yesterday, women have taken action to help the captive women and to have those guilty tried in international courts.

On August 3, 2014, Daesh massacred thousands of Êzidî residents of the city of Shengal, in the Federal Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Daesh members captured around 7,000 women and children, who are currently still being sold as "slaves" in markets in Daesh-controlled regions and beyond. One year on, there has still been no international intervention to rescue the women from captivity.

A group of women activists founded the civil society platform "Struggle for Women Detained by Daesh" in February with the hope of taking action for the women. Reyhan Yalçındağ is a lawyer and a member of the platform.

"On the one hand, we have started legal actions to have the perpetrators tried for their war crimes in the International Criminal Court [ICC] in the Hague," said Reyhan. "On the other hand, we are continuing our work to record the experiences of all the women in pain, and to issue a call to world women's organizations."

Reyhan noted that because international powers have supported Daesh, regional countries also had a role in the war crimes that took place one year ago. The platform is also working for the trial of those individuals and countries that Daesh members have testified to getting support from.

"As a result, our platform is actually the beginning of a process," said Reyhan. "There's a range of sexual crimes; we still don't have a clear number. The goal of the platform is to get that number out in the open, to record women's identities and experiences, and have it confirmed. Because all that has been experienced needs to officially pass into the historical record and the guilty need to be tried."

The platform has high hopes for the case in part because the chief prosecutor for the ICC also comes from an oppressed people. They will be filing charges as soon as they have gathered adequate information.

"The things are done to peoples who need to be protected, including Assyrians, Armenians, Shiites and Turkmens, and they need to be counted as genocide. The countries involved in the crime need to be tried immediately," said Reyhan. "Countries like Niger, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have turned into bazaars of women. There needs to be immediate action on all of this."

Reyhan compared the double victimization of Êzidî women due to their identities as Êzidîs and as women with the examples of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Rwanda and the Congo. She called for rehabilitation centers for the women, who need immediate intervention for their post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The peoples of the Middle East have been robbed of their past and their future first by colonial powers, then by the nation-states that imprison them. As women who have had this stolen from them and as women who defend the future democratic society, we will carry out a long-term project," said Reyhan. "We have set out to expose all the rights violations taking place in this land and to call for justice for all the women who have had their rights violated--who have been raped, massacred and imprisoned by gangs and states."

She called for more women's groups to join in the efforts of the platform and support the legal process.

(zd/fk/cm)