“The focus should be on ensuring effective criminal investigations and prosecutions, where the rights of Yezidi victims to truth, justice and reparation can be fully addressed,” read the report from the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Kinyat, an organization that documents crimes against Yezidis.
“As history has shown, this is the only way to ensure effective guarantees of non-repetition for the gravest crimes,” read the report that was published Thursday.
The report singles out the need to prosecute foreign fighters in national and international courts “on charges of sexual crimes amounting to genocide and crimes against humanity.”
These crimes were “carefully planned, institutionalized and highly organized” by ISIS with foreign fighters playing a major role.
FIDH and Kinyat, speaking with Yezidi survivors, documented that the women were “gifted or bought” to fighters from the nations of Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Yemen, France, Germany, USA, and China.
The Yezidi women were actually used by ISIS as a propaganda tool to attract foreigners to their cause, the organizations concluded.
To date, prosecution efforts have been largely limited to terror-related offenses.
In northern Syria, Kurds have as many as 900 foreign fighters in their custody, but their governments don’t want to take them back. The Kurds, who have established courts to try local ISIS members, have refused to prosecute the foreigners.
In Iraq, more than 300 ISIS suspects have been sentenced to death and hundreds more to life in prison. The crimes of genocide and sexual violence in conflict are not enshrined in Iraqi law, meaning the cases have been focused on terror charges. Iraq’s judicial authorities have been criticized for rushing the process.
“These legitimate concerns about security should not overshadow the exceptional gravity of atrocities committed by ISIL [ISIS] fighters, who must also be tried on international crimes charges,” the report stated.
“By pursuing international crimes charges, judicial authorities are faced with the need to investigate the crimes perpetrated against the civilian population during the occupation of cities and villages and thus play a central role in helping to deliver justice for victims.”
