ISIS and the Yazidis: Impact of the Conflict on the Identity of Yazidi Children
INTRODUCTION
My previous blog addressed the history of genocide faced by the Yazidi community and the events that occurred during and after the siege of Mount Sinjar by the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS). Now, I intend to delve deeper into the impact of the conflict upon the identity of children as Yazidis. As such this blogpost discusses the concept of right to identity in the context of genocide, and its violations in the context of the ISIS assault on the Yazidis.
RIGHT TO IDENITY: THE IDEA
The international human rights that are violated during conflicts fought on ethnic/communal fault lines have been similar throughout the globe: the deprivation of nationality, name, self determination, family ties and religion, among others. These rights are integral to an individual or community’s identity and, I argue should, be bundled under the banner of Right to Identity (RTI). The systematic infringement of RTI enables one community to destroy the abstract facets of another community’s identity, such as religion and culture, and abets in the commission of genocide. Destruction of identity to further genocide was discussed in detail by the Independent International Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar in relation to the Rohingya genocide. Applying a similar formula, ISIS supplemented its physical assault on the Yazidis with the categorical violation of RTI by using forced conversions, uprooting children from their families and imposing an Islamic ideology on everyday life, thus effectuating a cultural genocide alongside an attempted physical genocide. In this backdrop, the next section overviews RTI under international and regional human rights law.
LEGAL ANALYSIS
Article 8 of the United Nationals Convention on the Rights of the Child is the only provision in any international human rights instrument which specifically uses the term identity in the context of a human right. Article 8 specifically states that State Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference. Additionally, The United Nation’s Committee on the Rights of the Child, a group of independent experts who are responsible for authoritatively interpreting the provisions of the Child Rights Convention, has expanded the ambit of Article 8 to include the right to know one’s age and also the right to civic documentation to be inclusive of a child’s right to identity. It would also be relevant to state herein that the International Convention of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) also provides ample protection to the facets of the RTI through Article 24, without expressly using the term identity. Similar protection is also granted to facets of a child’s identity in almost all the major international human rights instruments, however like the ICCPR, none other than Article 8 of CRC bundles individual rights under the identity banner.
Additionally, various regional human rights courts and legal documents have also added great depth to the jurisprudence on right to identity. In specific, the Inter American Court of Human Rights has been instrumental in defining the contours of the rights to identity, in context to Article 8 CRC in landmark cases such as those of the Serrano Cruz Sisters and Gelman. Furthermore, in a more specific regional context the Arab Charter on Human Rights also protects various facets of identity such as nationality and name. Therefore, through the brief discussion held above, it is evident that there is a general consensus about what RTI includes and that states have a prerogative to respect and preserve it. Moving ahead, the following paragraphs analyse the destruction of identity among the Yazidi children in the context of the above legal standard.
THE YAZIDI SITUATION
The infringement of the Yazidi identity commenced way before the onslaught by ISIS. The Iraqi Government never recognised the Yazidi religion to be independent from Islam, and viewed it as a sub-sect of Islam. In addition, the Arabisation campaign of the entire Kurdish region also required Yazidis to declare themselves as Arabs to secure civic documentation. The term Yazidi did not exist in Iraqi legal nomenclature nor did it have any legal sanctity. As a result, in official Iraqi records most Yazidis in Iraq are represented as Arabs.
This situation was worsened by the nearly 5 year occupation of northern Iraq and Syria by ISIS which resulted in the capture of hundreds of young children who were held in indoctrination centres and then made part of the ISIS war machinery. Several of these children were brutally uprooted from their households, separated from their families and sent into ISIS detention. At the indoctrination centres, the Yazidi children were forcefully converted to Islam and radicalised or coerced devoting themselves to the cause of the “Caliphate”. As such ISIS deprived young Yazidi boys of their family ties and held them in an environment that completely destroyed their memory of being a Yazidi.
A similar story ensued with young girls as well. After being uprooted from their families Yazidi girls were also forcefully converted to Islam and sold off into slavery or married off to ISIS fighters. As the wife/slave of an ISIS fighter, Yazidi girls were forced to adopt Islam and completely forget Yazidi religion and custom. In addition, Iraqi law also considers any person who cannot prove his paternal lineage as Iraqi Muslim. Such a law becomes a major hurdle for Yazidi women to register their children as Yazidi in official records, in the event of death or disappearance of the father or more particularly in the case of children born to unknown fathers. Scholars have also opined that such deprivation of access to civic documentation also gives rise to an acute problem of statelessness and the risk of nationality depravation.
To make matters worse for the Yazidi girls, the Yazidi religion prohibits conversion to Yazidism. Thus, for those girls who were forcibly converted to Islam there arose a great impediment for them to be accepted back into Yazidi society. Nevertheless, in a very progressive move, some Yazidi girls have been accepted back into their society. However, conservative attitudes still make it difficult for children of ISIS parentage to be accepted back into the society. Thus the legal identity of several young boys and girls hangs in the limbo.
CONCLUSION
This blog through its paragraphs has traced the concept of the right to identity and its roots in international law. RTI as enshrined in various human rights instruments sets a standard to be applied to assess what identity is in the legal context and makes it the prerogative of the states to preserve and respect it. The blog also highlighted the gross violation of the RTI that the Yazidis faced due to decades of institutionalised discrimination by the Iraqi State, and the genocide, both cultural and physical perpetrated by ISIS. To address these issues several measures have been set up, viz. the establishment of the United Nations Team to Promote Accountability for the Crimes Committed by Da’esh (UNITAD), that investigates the crimes of ISIS and also the new Iraqi law aimed at mitigating the impact of the conflict on Yazidi women by rehabilitating them into societies. However, despite such measures and the lapse of several years since the fall of ISIS many Yazidis still remain missing and the scars of ISIS ideology remain unhealed. The need of the hour is for the international community to join hands with the Iraqi Government to initiate wholesome transitional justice measures to address the root causes of Yazidi discrimination so that the community can live without fear and embrace their unique identity with pride.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author is a lawyer from India and has a Public International Law (Advance LLM), from the University of Leiden. Nazeer also volunteers for YLN to aid the organisation’s operations.
In its mission to spread awareness about the atrocities against the Yazidi community, the Yazidi Legal Network (YLN) will continue to write a series of blogs on the aftermath of the genocide. To add more perspective to our mission we invite persons in our network, our partners, professionals and students to share their ideas on the issue. Contact info@yazidilegalnetwork.org for queries on submission and follow the www.yazidilegalnetwork for updates on more written work.