Yezidi women protest in front of European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium on 08.09.2014. Picture by Wiktor Dabkowski/DPA/PA Images. All rights reserved.The protection of women continues to be an ill-addressed challenge in Iraq, and the Yezidi women continue to face an uphill battle to heal, mentally and physically. Women and girls were victims of violence during the conflict, involving, inter alia, trafficking, rape, torture and sexual slavery. Its root causes lie within a host of complex reasons but none are simpler than the need for the Iraqi government, with the forceful encouragement of the international community, to shift its focus onto the rule of law and Iraq’s Yezidi women, a beleaguered community that cannot move on from ISIS, even if the world has.
There are two parts to the problem facing Yezidi women: the country suffers from violence against women as a whole, yet Yezidi women are additionally persecuted because of their religion and faith. After ISIS took Sinjar in August 2014 and launched its mass atrocities against the Yezidi community, it then moved on to conduct its industrial scale sexual violence of Yezidi women. Four years on, the Yezidi women have yet to receive any sense of justice. The rule of law continues to succumb to, and fall second to the ineffective democratic governance. On this basis, therefore, it may be argued that the solution must revolve around remedying structural shortcomings. However, it is also an issue of implementation, and the attitude of lawmakers, who have to this day failed in enabling a provision in the Iraqi constitution and/or national legislation that ensures internationally recognised laws and norms supersede and override local domestic laws related to the protection of women from violence.
Although Iraq has shown a commitment to legal reforms, shortcomings are still inherent as the Iraqi government has failed to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by ISIS and further, to provide legal redress. Trials are taking place and, since Iraq does not have national legislations addressing crimes against humanity, ISIS members are being prosecuted under the Counter-Terrorism Law with no recognition of all other crimes committed. The needs of women have been neglected by the government and the majority of the support they receive is from international and national non-governmental organisations.
