Image by Dying Regime CC BY-SA 2.0 - Amal Clooney is seeking to prosecute the Islamic State group for their crimes against the Yazidi women
- Clooney said the militant group enslaved, raped and committed genocide against the Yazidi women and children
- Other people are also crying out for justice including Nobel Peace Prize nominee Nadia Murad Basee Taha who was also a victim of the militants
Amal Clooney, wife of heartthrob actor George Clooney and an international human rights lawyer, is seeking to prosecute the Islamic State militants in Iraq for being involved in sexual slavery, genocide and rape.
According to Clooney’s law firm, she wants to defend the Yazidi women who have been victims of the Islamist group. She is seeking to prosecute them through the International Criminal Court for their crimes against the said community.
“We know that thousands of Yazidi civilians have been killed and that thousands of Yazidi women have been enslaved,” Clooney, a recognised barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London, said in a statement.
“We know that systematic rapes have taken place, and that they are still taking place. And yet no one is being held to account,” she added.
Since 2014, the Islamic State militants have raped, enslaved and killed thousands of Yazidis. They have also forced over 400,000 members of the religious minority to leave their homes located in Northern Iraq.
People have already been crying out for justice, but so far, no one has been held responsible. Nadia Murad Basee Taha is one of those people who have been crying out for justice for the crimes committed against them.
The 21- year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee sent her message to the United Nations Security Council in December of last year. She has spoken and appealed to governments since then for action.
Through the aid of the international press such as Reuters, Taha shared her experience of being abducted by the militants from her village in Iraq in August of 2014. She was taken to the group’s stronghold in Mosul and from there, she and thousands of other Yazidi women and children were traded by the militants as gifts. She was repeatedly tortured and raped until she escaped three months later.
Based on the reports of the United Nations, the militants have enslaved about 7,000 women and girls since 2014. A majority of these slaves are from the Yazidi community – a community whose faith has mixed elements of Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. The group still holds about 3,500 slaves.
The United States, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe have all condemned the Islamist militant group’s actions as genocide.
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