Ezidi, Armenian, Syriac, Chaldean, Arab, Kurdish, and Circassian women, must unite and stand together. Only through collective effort and inclusion can we build a free Syria where everyone’s rights are respected.
In 2007, Hales fled to Germany with her mother and sister—a country she eventually came to not only appreciate but, one might say, love, for both its freedoms and its values. As a Ezidi, an ethnoreligious group that has faced centuries of persecution, the concept of freedom holds great significance for Hales. She came to deeply understand the value of freedom through the atrocities committed by Islamist groups. The most recent of over 70 Ezidi genocides occurred on August 3, 2014, with thousands of women still held captive by ISIS. “We have lived in captivity long enough; now it is time to stand up for our freedom and our rights,” says Hales.
The proposed legal change would legitimize child marriage, putting young girls at greater risk of abuse, forced marriage, and poor health outcomes. Although the acts committed by the ISIS-members since 2014 should not be classified as “forced marriage” or even include the word “marriage”, the Iraqi government will in fact classify the genocide acts committed towards the women as “marriage”.
Iraq’s international commitments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and …