REPAK (Kurdish Women’s Relation Office) has launched a women’s petition in support of the Yazidi community of Shengal. The petition is directed to the President of Iraq, Dr. Barham Salih and the Prime Minister of Iraq Dr. Mustafa Al-Kadhimi

The petition reminded that “in August 2014 ISIS committed genocide against the Yazidi community of Shingal (Arabic: Sinjar), killing thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their ancestral lands in Upper Mesopotamia. Although this massacre is recognized by the United Nations, the survivors are still waiting for justice.”

Signatures can be sent to: [email protected]

The petition continues as follows:

The ISIS-genocide of Yazidis in Shengal was and still is committed, in large part, in the form of feminicide. It is well known that ISIS is based on an extremely misogynist world view. The jihadist group abducted an estimated 7,000 Yazidi women and girls as ‘booty’, sold them in slave markets into sexual slavery and transferred them to locations across Iraq and Syria. Almost 3,000 Yazidi women and children are still missing. If we consider the role of women in protecting and preserving the culture and identity of threatened people, it seems clear that ISIS aimed to annihilate the Yazidi belief, which it considers as devil-worship, through feminicide.

It is fascinating to see how the Yazidi people, and especially Yazidi women in Shengal, responded to genocide and feminicide. They tried to dress their wound by finding a way to end their history of massacres and genocides. For the Yazidi people the response was self-organizing. Based on the idea of peaceful coexistence, democratic pluralism, equal rights and political self-determination, the Yazidis built up a self-organized administration, autonomous women’s councils and self-protection forces.

Iraq, as a multi-ethnic state, has been plagued by years of ethnic and sectarian conflict. Supporting local communities’ participation in political decision-making, paying attention to their collective will and by doing so developing a democratic relationship between the central government and local communities is essential to overcome these conflicts.

Unfortunately, the agreement of 9 October 2020 on the future of Shingal between Iraq’s Federal and the Kurdish Regional governments conflicts with the idea of peaceful coexistence; this is because it was made over the Yazidi people’s head. With this deal Shengal’s Yazidis were deeply hurt again because it does not acknowledge them as political subjects but as objects whose future is debated and decided by others. 

We, the undersigned, hereby call the Iraqi President and the Iraqi Prime Minister to cancel the Shengal deal of 9 October 2020, which is creating tension and frustration for the Yazidi people. The determination of the future of Shingal requires the democratic participation and representation of the Yazidi community in Shengal. In this sense we call you to recognize the self-administration of the Yazidi people in Shengal."