ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Two Kurdish women's rights groups, in collaboration with international organizations, have prepared a roadmap for the reconstruction of the war-scarred region of Shingal, the ancestral land of Kurdish Yezidis.
The two groups have called on Iraqi and Kurdish regional governments to consider the rebuilding of Shingal as “a defining issue for the whole region”
The Shingal area was overrun by the militants of the Islamic State, or ISIS in August last year. At least 1,000 Yezidi men, women and children were killed in the onslaught and thousands are believed to remain in ISIS custody.
The roadmap described the massacre as “systematic mass crimes committed against the fabric of Yezidi society.”
“We have spent great amount of time and effort to write this report and really hope that both Baghdad and Erbil take it seriously,” said Chinar Abdulla, who represents the two women-rights organizations Emma and Guide to Women’s Peace which are behind the initiative.
Abdulla told Rudaw a number of foreign experts with extensive international experience had advised the groups in writing the report.
In March, the two organizations together with the Yezidi group of Lalesh held a conference in which politicians, clerics, social scientists and officials from both the Kurdistan Regional Government and Iraq contributed to the outline of the roadmap.
The report says at least 5,000 Yezidi women, men and children have been killed or remain missing as a result of the war against ISIS.
It also highlights the “urgent necessity to obtain verifiable knowledge” about the number of the victims and survivors of the war.
The report says “trained women officers” should be assigned the task of investigating the sexual crimes against Yezidi women due to “sensitivity of the subject” for the female survivors and their relatives.
The report also stresses the need to restore faith and trust between Yezidis and other groups in the region “which will take years to rebuild."
