Of the estimated 500,000 Yazidis in existence, the majority reside in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq, as well as in Syria and the Caucasus. Although their faith is rooted in Zoroastrianism, Christianity and even Islam, they have been targeted as polytheists and “devil-worshippers” by ISIS.
Yazidis recognize seven angels stemming from the Creator, the chief of whom, Malak Taus, is prayed to five times a day. Also known as Shaytan, he is considered an alter ego of God. This second name is Arabic for “devil”, prompting their persecution.
In the August 2014 capture of Sinjar, Iraq, 6,470 Yazidis were abducted by ISIS militants. Today, 3,140 remain in their hands, most of whom are women. If not executed immediately, the Yazidi men were coerced into fighting.
The women were transported to the city of Mosul, Iraq. There, they were entered into a network of sex slavery in which they are bought and sold among their captors. The city contains a collection of warehouses for the inspection of women and contractual transactions between men. Victims are driven to their destination in buses with curtained windows.
According to one survivor, Shari’a courts possess a wall of pictures of the women and girls, complete with the phone numbers of the people by whom they were imprisoned for the purpose of a tradeoff. In the corner of each photograph were found small captions: “Sabaya No.1,” “Sabaya No.2,” etc. “Sabaya” translates to “slave”, a title used to address the women and girls throughout their abduction. One such victim, Nadia, described her experience to the U.N. Security Council in December 2015,
“He beat me up, forced [me] to undress, and put me in a room with six militants… They continued to commit crimes to my body until I became unconscious.”
Given that the Yazidi victims are considered property, their “owners” have the right to free them for a heavenly reward, though few ever do. ISIS justifies the rape and torture of the Yazidis under the Qur’an; they claim the text promotes this treatment of non-Muslims as spiritual.
This rationalization and the actions thereof are exacerbated by the fact that the Yazidi people have an oral tradition, rather than a written scripture. Christians and Jews often face relatively better treatment because Islamic extremists can draw the commonality of a holy text.
From October 2016 to July 2017, the Yazidis were caught in the crossfire of the Battle of Mosul. About 180 women, girls, and children were emancipated in this timeframe. Now, victims face innumerable health issues, ranging from infections and broken bones to inexplicable exhaustion; some girls sleep for days on end. Unable to return to their homeland and often bereaved of family, the remaining Yazidi people face years of strife ahead.
