Shafaq News- Baghdad

Yazidi survivors of ISIS crimes on Sunday rejected any amendment that would weaken the core protections of Iraq’s Yazidi Female Survivors Law, while stressing their support for the rights of other communities subjected to abuses by the group.

In a statement, the survivors described the law as an important recognition by the Iraqi state of the suffering caused by the ISIS genocide, warning that diluting its provisions “under any pretext” would represent a retreat from the state’s responsibility toward its victims.

ISIS overran Sinjar, the community’s historic heartland in Iraq, in August 2014, carrying out mass executions and abducting and enslaving thousands of Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority. Kurdish Peshmerga forces retook the district in late 2015, and Iraqi forces declared Nineveh province fully liberated from the group two years later.

Iraq enacted the Yazidi Female Survivors Law in 2021 to provide victims with compensation, healthcare, education, housing, employment opportunities, and rehabilitation services. Article 2 covers Yazidi children abducted before the age of 18, as well as women and girls from the Turkmen, Christian, and Shabak communities subjected to specified ISIS crimes.

A proposed amendment would broaden the provision covering abducted children to include other affected communities. Earlier this month, Iraqi Turkmen Front parliamentary bloc leader Arshad Al-Salihi backed such an expansion, arguing that the current legislation leaves out many Turkmen children abducted from Tal Afar. He urged Parliament’s leadership and political blocs to place the presidency-proposed amendment on the legislative agenda.

Read more: The long shadow of Sinjar: Twelve years after the ISIS genocide