Eight Years Into the Yazidi Genocide Led by Global Inaction | Opinion

Viyan still bleeds. She bravely escaped Da'esh, also known as ISIS, at the age of 16 after over five years of captivity. She was just about to start the sixth grade when she was thrown into a truck less than two weeks after Da'esh invaded and occupied the Sinjar mountains and nearby villages in Iraq.

Viyan withstood a vicious cycle of genocidal enslavement—six times as a sex slave for the perverted pleasures of dehumanizing militants and seven times as a forced domestic slave with heavy household chores and labor, as well as the convoluted responsibility of taking care of Da'esh children. In total, she was traded, exchanged, and gifted to 13 Da'esh families while in captivity, surviving four pregnancies and four forced abortions, of which two were of her own doing, throwing herself down the stairs in desperation after learning two of her Da'esh traffickers wanted to keep the child.

One day in the life of a Da'esh slave, she managed to contact her family with vague details on where she believed she was being held. They spent three months borrowing and saving money to hire a smuggler who worked undercover to find Viyan. Agreeing on a dangerous, life-threatening escape plan, she fled Da'esh territory one week later.

Viyan is one of the 3,545 Yazidis, an ethno-religious minority Indigenous to northern Iraq, who escaped captivity or were rescued from Da'esh strongholds between 2014 and 2020 with statistics still not officially disclosed for 2021-2022. They call her lucky. Except, Viyan now lives in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp near Dohuk, Sinjar miles away from where was once home.

Lynn first met Viyan in 2019 when the Yazidi Survivors Network (YSN) was just established by Yazda, a Yazidi community-led grassroots institution. Today, Viyan is one of the most active survivors at a public speaking coaching course for the Yazidi Survivors Network at Yazda, which has helped a dozen Yazidi survivors take the global stage and share their stories with the world.

This year Viyan turns 18, legally entering adulthood although she never had the privilege of a childhood. Eight years out of school. Eight years of malnourishment of body, mind, and soul. Eight years of a series of episodes of enslavement from sexual trafficking as a weapon of genocide inflicted by perverted, power-starved terrorists to forced displacement in an unhygienic, unsafe, and unsustainable camp managed by international capital and global governance. Eight years of a life not worth living.

About 360,000 Yazidis have been displaced, and it is a growing reality that this might be permanent collateral damage. An estimated 200,000 still live in globally funded IDP camps in atrocious conditions. An update obtained from the Office of Kidnapped Yazidis in Iraq in July 2022 states 2,760 Yazidi women and children are still missing. No efforts are being made to find and rescue them.

Eight years into the Yazidi genocide since Aug. 3, 2014, this crime of crimes continues in new monstrous forms and institutional ways. Today, Sinjar remains a destroyed conflict zone that is unable to help itself since Da'esh fell as a non-state caliphate. Sinjaris from all minority communities continue to try their best to return home with no support. The majority have been re-displaced; many have returned to the IDP camps.

When Frank first visited the Sinjar Mountains and town of Sinjar in August 2017, three years into the genocide, he was struck by the full uprooting of people and complete devastation of land. When he returned to Iraq in 2019, five years into the genocide, what was more incomprehensible than how far-reaching this genocide has been was how little remorse the world has shown toward a people that continue to suffer, and very simply put, need all our help. As a grandfather and father, Frank cannot imagine what the families of the still-missing Yazidi women, girls and boys must be thinking of the world we live in.

As an Armenian Arab peacebuilder, Lynn cannot imagine what could be taking the world so long. We have more than disappointed the Yazidi people; we have proven to them that we do not know how to be their much-needed allies so that peace can win over evil.

The international friends of the Yazidi cause—the same countries that were so determined to defeat Da'esh militarily and culturally—must showcase the same commitment, rigor, and agility to the Yazidis, Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriacs, and all other communities whose lives were uprooted by terrorists.

First, the policy of global inaction must be acknowledged and rejected. Second, support and diplomatic mediation must be prioritized to re-think and re-activate the Sinjar Agreement, one that ensures a strategic and inclusive recovery and rebuilding of Sinjar. Third, the international community must step up to guarantee security, infrastructure, services, socio-economic assets, and housing are provided in Sinjar. Fourth, an integrated and coherent strategy to exit the permanence of the IDP camps in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region must be drafted and disclosed. Fifth, a task force to rescue the Yazidi women and children still held captive since the first days of genocide must be established and funded.

Humanitarian aid needs to transform into a long-term social investment strategy that is Sinjar first for all Sinjaris. But this can only happen if community-led governance committees are established and empowered, equipping the Yazidis, Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriacs, and other communities with far overdue decision-making power.

Global recognition of the Yazidi genocide was always meant to only be the beginning. Today, it is in the hands of national and international governments to make sure that Viyan and her entire community are safely and happily back home soon.

Frank Wolf is former congressman for the 10th congressional district of Virginia, he served 17 terms in office for 34 consecutive years.

Lynn Zovighian is the co-founder and managing director of The Zovighian Partnership (ZP). A philanthropist, she also manages the ZP Public Office.

Both co-authors began to serve the Yazidi people in 2015 at the onset of the genocide committed by Da'esh, and would like to extend special thanks to Natia Navrouzov and the Yazda Yazidi Survivors Network (YSN) team for their imperative contributions to this piece.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.

To honor survivors-centered protection protocols for personal security, Viyan is a combined pseudonym and persona of two Yazidi women who are members of the Yazidi Survivors Network (YSN) at Yazda.

Note on data: Given the dearth of official statistics, some of the above data points are directly collected from Yazidi community facing organizations and initiatives. This data represents the latest information made available to the co-authors at the time of writing this opinion piece.