Sakharov Prize awarded to Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar

Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar. Sakharov Prize 2016.

Parliament’s 2016 Sakharov Prize has been awarded to Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar, two young Iraqi Yazidi women, Daesh/ISIS survivors and activists. “More than 3,500 children and women are still held hostage as slaves under Daesh. Every day they die a thousand times,” Aji Bashar said in her acceptance speech.

Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar. Sakharov Prize 2016.mp4

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-IzBTL13CZZbWFDbVI2QUh0Q2c/view?usp=drive_web

Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar. Sakharov Prize 2016. Credits: European Parliament. EU.

Last Tuesday, Murad and Aji Bashar received Parliament’s 2016 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought during a ceremony in Strasbourg where they were honoured by Parliament because, after escaping themselves sexual enslavement by Daesh, they both became spokespeople for women affected by the terrorist group's campaign of sexual violence and for the persecuted Yazidi minority.

Nadia and Lamiya are from Kocho, one of the villages near Sinjar, home to the majority of the world’s Yazidis in northwest Iraq, close to the Iraqi-Syrian border. In August 2014, Daesh slaughtered all the males in the village. Young women, including Aji Bashar, Murad and their sisters, were abducted by Daesh militants and forced into sex slavery. They eventually managed to escape: Murad in November 2014 and Aji Bashar in April 2016.

Murad, 23, and Aji Bashar, 19, now live in Germany and have become active in raising awareness of the plight of the Yazidi community in Iraq, a religious minority subjected to a genocidal campaign by Daesh, and of the situation of women affected by the terrorist group’s campaign of sexual violence.

Murad said: “This prize is for every Yazidi victim of Daesh. I’ve seen thousands of refugees go through the same thing as myself and my family. We are scattered all over the place. They came to our village and murdered the men, enslaved the girls. They had no mercy, no dignity, no respect for human rights. They just enslaved us, sold, treated us like animals are treated.  I also know that Daesh is still trying to exterminate us. I think about this and this is what gives me the strength, all the strength, to continue."

Aji Bashar added: “That was the toughest thing to see in my entire life, the girls being raped, the men killed. It just happened one day and we couldn't do anything to stop it. I would really like to explain what happened to me there, not only for myself, but so others, the other women, are not treated like this, so that we Yazidis never have to go through anything like this again. Our biggest dream is to live peacefully again in our village. "

Murad wants to send out a message to the world but mainly to all young Muslims: "Stay away from Daesh and not become part of it. Daesh has to be held accountable for the atrocities they have committed. Being part of Daesh is not just about how you look, growing a beard and wearing traditional clothes. Some people don’t even look like they are radical. We saw their way of thinking, we saw what they can do, we need to stop them. If they don’t get stopped I fear there will be a global war."

Lamiya Aji Bashar and Nadia Murad want Daesh criminals brought to justice for crimes they say amount to genocide.

Sakharov Prize 2016. Press Conference.mp4

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-IzBTL13CZZbHVuWVR2OVVpb3c/view?usp=drive_web

Sakharov Prize 2016. Press Conference. Credits: European Parliament. EU.

The violence against Yazidis

The violence against the Yazidi people stem from Daesh members’ view that Yazidi are infidels. Daesh keeps a price list for the young women to be sold as sex slaves. The list includes a price for girls 1-9 years old - EUR169, the highest priced group. Once abducted, the Yazidi and Christian women and girls are forced to undergo virginity tests and then are sent to be traded in slave bazaars.

Women who try to make themselves less appealing to their captors, by either rubbing dirt on their faces or telling lies such as their younger brothers are their sons results in them being beaten nearly to death. A Yazidi girl attempted to kill herself by throwing herself from the second floor of a building. Severely injured, terrorists forbade the other Yazidi captives from helping her. Some women and girls killed themselves by cutting their wrists or throats, while others hanged themselves using their headscarves. One Yazidi teenager who had been repeatedly raped set herself on fire to make her less desirable to her captors. If women refuse to have sex with their captors, they are killed as were 19 Yazidi women back in July. The 19 women were placed inside an iron cage and burned alive.

Over 3,500 Yazidi women and children are still held by Daesh, many of them forcibly transferred into Syria. Yazidi females continue to be sexually enslaved and Yazidi boys, indoctrinated, trained and used in hostilities. Thousands of Yazidi men and boys are missing. The slaughter of Yazidi people is on-going.

The Intenational Politico-Military campaign to counter Daesh

While the International politico-military campaign has degraded Daesh by targeting its leadership and retaking a portion of territory under its control, according to analysts, achieving a lasting defeat of the militants will be elusive without local forces capable of holding regained territory and a successful conclusion of the campaign will require significantly increased effort on two fronts:

First, more-comprehensive training, advising, and assistance to create more-capable, coordinated indigenous forces of appropriate composition and enable them to regain and hold territory. Second, political agreements must be forged to resolve key drivers of conflict among Iraqis and Syrians. Without these two elements, resurgent extremist violence is likely.

Sectarian divisions in Iraq, Iranian support for Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, the Syrian civil war, and Russian intervention to support the besieged regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad complicate the prospects for success. As well, the Syrian regime is heavily reliant on external militia support and the government in Iraq has pledged decentralization efforts to address Sunni concerns but lacks sufficient Shia support to enact them.