The Yazidis are a group of people in Northern Iraq and their religion is derived from Zoroastrianism (an ancient Persian faith founded by a philosopher), Christianity and Islam. The religion has taken elements from each, ranging from baptism (Christianity) to circumcision (Islam) to reverence of fire as a manifestation from God (derived from Zoroastrianism) and yet remains distinctly non-Abrahamic. This derivative quality has often led the Yazidis to be referred to as a sect. At the core of the Yazidis’ marginalization is their worship of a fallen angel, Melek Tawwus, or Peacock Angel, one of the seven angels that take primacy in their beliefs. Unlike the fall from grace of Satan, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Melek Tawwus was forgiven and returned to heaven by God. The importance of Melek Tawwus to the Yazidis has given them an undeserved reputation for being devil-worshippers – a notoriety that, in the climate of extremism gripping Iraq, has turned life-threatening.
People who do not believe in God deserve to be taught about him, to be prayed for and not to be killed or raped or tortured or mistreated.
Yazidis have endured a life of torment for their beliefs from the so called ISIS and this is one girls story from a new televised interview, conducted in Arabic with a Yazidi girl who endured sexual captivity at the hands of the Islamic State, was published on March 22, 2016. It appeared on "Shabaab [Youth] Talk," hosted by Ja'far Abdul.
Would you be able to stomach your teenage daughter being taken away as a sex slave, or your 9 year old been raped to death? Such and worse is the fate of over a thousand women still held in captivity by the so called Isis who will definitely meet their fate on judgement day. We mustn't keep silent anymore, Let us speak out against this inhumanity and call on nations to come together and defeat Isis. Little children are being brainwashed and are becoming the new generation killers for terrorism. Let us pray that God has mercy on all who are oppressed and inhumanely treated and while we are it, let's learn to be more thankful for our lives no matter the circumstance, because we are in far better situations than these poor people, lets remember to complain less and to be less materialistic, to kill the hate that is manifesting itself in Racism, Ethniticsm and Religionism.
Yes we are Black and White, Asian and Hispanic. Christians and Budhists, Muslim and Jew. Hindu and many more but We are one people, one race.
We are the Human Race.
The teenage girl, who went by the pseudonym of Birvan, was enslaved when she was 15 and endured months of captivity before she managed to escape. She is now 17. Based on the 40-minute interview, her story is as follows:
Yazidis were escaping from their war-torn village near Tel Affar, Iraq, when they were intercepted on the road by four ISIS operatives. The men swore that if the Yazidis would cooperate and answer some questions, no harm would befall them and they would be allowed to return home in peace. Asked how many Yazidis there were, Birvan says she recalls only 95 men and their families — "many, many women and children."
Before long, 17 more ISIS vehicles "full of men" appeared. The men became aggressive, ordered the Yazidis around, separated the men from the women and marched the men away — including Birvan's father, brothers, and uncles. The women and children were taken to different buildings and kept under lock and key.
ISIS fighters said they were merely moving the men to a different location. However, soon after they disappeared, Birvan heard innumerable gunshots: "The sound of those shots will never leave me," she said. She later came across her father's corpse; she never saw her brothers or uncles again and is convinced they were all slaughtered.
The women were then transferred to different locations, and stayed a few days in each. Birvan was able to stay close to her mother. ISIS members would regularly intimidate the women, fire their guns in the air, and shout "Allah Akbar" (Allah is the greatest"). "All of us," Birvan said, "would huddle together and grab hold of each other in terror."
ISIS members, according to Birvan, would tell the women that if they "try to escape we will kill you, or slaughter you. ... My mother always held me tight, terrified that after they took her entire family — husband, children, and brothers — they would take me as well."
That day arrived. Birvan said she and her mother held each other tightly and cried as ISIS forced them apart and took her mother, and all middle-aged and older women, to a different location:
The hardest moment for me that I remember is having my hand clasped to my mom's hand and then having them forcefully broken apart. This was the hardest thing — not just for me but for all the girls and children. ... They killed any woman who resisted going, they would open fire on her.
Next, all boys older than six were taken to a military camp, presumably to be converted to Islam and trained as ISIS fighters.
Then Birvan's group — girls and women from the ages of 9 to 22 — were taken to another holding place in Mosul:
I remember a man who looked at least 40 years old coming and taking a ten-
year-old girl. When she resisted him, he beat her severely, using stones, and would have opened fire on her if she had not gone with him. Everything against her will.
There Birvan found another 5,000 Yazidi girls enslaved. "They would come and take any girl against her will; if she refused, they would kill her on the spot."
"They used to come and buy the girls without a price, I mean, they used to tell us Yazidi girls, you are sabiya [spoils of war, sex slaves], you are kuffar [infidels], you are to be sold without a price," meaning they had no base value and explains why Yazidi girls were "sold" in exchange for a few packs of cigarettes.
"Anyone who walked by our room and liked us would just say 'Let's go.'"
When her turn came and a man said "come," "I refused and resisted, and he beat me savagely." He purchased her, forced her to his home, which had formerly belonged to Yazidis, where, to live, she gratified him
When asked about him, she said, "He was truly foul, truly, I mean, if you saw him, there's no difference between him and a beast. Actually animals have more mercy in their hearts than these [ISIS]."
When Ja'far Abdul asked for more details of her everyday experiences, Birvan visibly appeared uncomfortable. She kept pausing, simply repeating the word "rape." At one point she said "there were 48 ISIS members in that house, and we were two girls — two Yazidi girls" — as if to say "use your imagination."
She told how they had once taken her friend to an adjacent room: "you could not begin to comprehend what was happening there!" She heard her friend screaming out her name and saying "Please help me, save me!"
The only recurrent thought she had was "What wrong did these children — or I — commit to deserve all this? ... I lost my father and brothers, and then even my mother was taken from me. ... We were just children. Any girl over 9 years old, they took her — raped her."
Birvan said she tried to commit suicide four times. Once she took 150 pills she found in the house; what pills she never knew. She suffered toxic poisoning but did not die. Abdul asked if anyone had taken her to a hospital. She said: "What hospital?! They beat me even more!"
She also tried to drink gasoline and slice her wrists. "Life was a nightmare," she said.
She said the Yazidi women were forced to wear burqas when they were traveling outside, and mostly to hide who they were. They also compelled the girls to dress scantily. "Everything," she said, "was easy for them."
When asked if there was a daily routine, she said "Every day I died 100 times over. Not just once. Every hour I died, every hour. ... From the beating, from the misery, from the torture."
Birvan eventually managed to escape — "only because my determination was such that I didn't care if I got caught. Escape or death were both better than remaining there."
Other Yazidi and non-Muslim women living under ISIS have not been able to escape; they are hoping we will rescue them.
Yazidis were escaping from their war-torn village near Tel Affar, Iraq, when they were intercepted on the road by four ISIS operatives. The men swore that if the Yazidis would cooperate and answer some questions, no harm would befall them and they would be allowed to return home in peace. Asked how many Yazidis there were, Birvan says she recalls only 95 men and their families — "many, many women and children."
Before long, 17 more ISIS vehicles "full of men" appeared. The men became aggressive, ordered the Yazidis around, separated the men from the women and marched the men away — including Birvan's father, brothers, and uncles. The women and children were taken to different buildings and kept under lock and key.
ISIS fighters said they were merely moving the men to a different location. However, soon after they disappeared, Birvan heard innumerable gunshots: "The sound of those shots will never leave me," she said. She later came across her father's corpse; she never saw her brothers or uncles again and is convinced they were all slaughtered.
The women were then transferred to different locations, and stayed a few days in each. Birvan was able to stay close to her mother. ISIS members would regularly intimidate the women, fire their guns in the air, and shout "Allah Akbar" (Allah is the greatest"). "All of us," Birvan said, "would huddle together and grab hold of each other in terror."
ISIS members, according to Birvan, would tell the women that if they "try to escape we will kill you, or slaughter you. ... My mother always held me tight, terrified that after they took her entire family — husband, children, and brothers — they would take me as well."
That day arrived. Birvan said she and her mother held each other tightly and cried as ISIS forced them apart and took her mother, and all middle-aged and older women, to a different location:
The hardest moment for me that I remember is having my hand clasped to my mom's hand and then having them forcefully broken apart. This was the hardest thing — not just for me but for all the girls and children. ... They killed any woman who resisted going, they would open fire on her.
Next, all boys older than six were taken to a military camp, presumably to be converted to Islam and trained as ISIS fighters.
Then Birvan's group — girls and women from the ages of 9 to 22 — were taken to another holding place in Mosul:
I remember a man who looked at least 40 years old coming and taking a ten-
There Birvan found another 5,000 Yazidi girls enslaved. "They would come and take any girl against her will; if she refused, they would kill her on the spot."
"They used to come and buy the girls without a price, I mean, they used to tell us Yazidi girls, you are sabiya [spoils of war, sex slaves], you are kuffar [infidels], you are to be sold without a price," meaning they had no base value and explains why Yazidi girls were "sold" in exchange for a few packs of cigarettes.
"Anyone who walked by our room and liked us would just say 'Let's go.'"
When her turn came and a man said "come," "I refused and resisted, and he beat me savagely." He purchased her, forced her to his home, which had formerly belonged to Yazidis, where, to live, she gratified him
When asked about him, she said, "He was truly foul, truly, I mean, if you saw him, there's no difference between him and a beast. Actually animals have more mercy in their hearts than these [ISIS]."
When Ja'far Abdul asked for more details of her everyday experiences, Birvan visibly appeared uncomfortable. She kept pausing, simply repeating the word "rape." At one point she said "there were 48 ISIS members in that house, and we were two girls — two Yazidi girls" — as if to say "use your imagination."
She told how they had once taken her friend to an adjacent room: "you could not begin to comprehend what was happening there!" She heard her friend screaming out her name and saying "Please help me, save me!"
The only recurrent thought she had was "What wrong did these children — or I — commit to deserve all this? ... I lost my father and brothers, and then even my mother was taken from me. ... We were just children. Any girl over 9 years old, they took her — raped her."
Birvan said she tried to commit suicide four times. Once she took 150 pills she found in the house; what pills she never knew. She suffered toxic poisoning but did not die. Abdul asked if anyone had taken her to a hospital. She said: "What hospital?! They beat me even more!"
She also tried to drink gasoline and slice her wrists. "Life was a nightmare," she said.
She said the Yazidi women were forced to wear burqas when they were traveling outside, and mostly to hide who they were. They also compelled the girls to dress scantily. "Everything," she said, "was easy for them."
When asked if there was a daily routine, she said "Every day I died 100 times over. Not just once. Every hour I died, every hour. ... From the beating, from the misery, from the torture."
Birvan eventually managed to escape — "only because my determination was such that I didn't care if I got caught. Escape or death were both better than remaining there."
Other Yazidi and non-Muslim women living under ISIS have not been able to escape; they are hoping we will rescue them.
Amal Clooney had this to say recently- When asked why she decided to take on this case, she stated that: “The European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the US government and the UK House of Commons have all recognized that there is a genocide being perpetrated by IS against the Yazidis in Iraq. How can it be that the most serious crimes known to humanity are being carried out before our eyes but are not being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague? We know that thousands of Yazidi civilians have been killed and that thousands of Yazidi women have been enslaved by a terrorist organization, IS, that has publicly proclaimed its genocidal intent. We know that systematic rapes have taken place, and that they are still taking place. And yet no one is being held to account. It is time that we see IS commanders in the dock in The Hague, and I am honoured to have been asked to represent Nadia and the Yazidi community in their quest for legal accountability”.
You do not have to be a celebrity or married to one to speak up, we have platforms, Social Media has given us platforms, lets make issues like this Viral not mundane issues. Do something in your community to begin to eradicate hate, have intervention meetings for different kinds of people to come together, to break bread and love each other.
We are dis-united. We cannot and should not let hate take over our world and destroy our children when we are gone. We must start now. Do something, will you?
Culled from:https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8015/isis-rape-yazidihttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/who-yazidi-isis-iraq-religion-ethnicity-mountains
http://www.yazda.org/amal-clooney-to-represent-isis-survivor-nadia-murad-and-yazda/
For more information on how to help Yazidi girls please contact
For more information on how to help Yazidi girls please contact
Abid Shamden
Yazda
Telephone: 402.326.6005
Email abidshamdeen@gmail.com
Elizabeth Schaeffer Brown
Uncommon Union
Telephone: 917.754.8266
Email: elizabeth@uncommonunion.com
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