ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Stockholm’s District Court on Tuesday convicted a 56-year-old woman to 12 years in prison for crimes against humanity, genocide, and gross war crimes committed against Yazidi women and children in Syria’s northern province of Raqqa.
The woman was found to have had “a strong ideological inclination to destroy members of a religious group,” according to a statement by Stockholm’s District Court. In total, nine victims, including seven children, suffered severe mental harm as a result of the convicted woman’s actions “which will affect them for the rest of their lives,” the statement added.
In 2014, the Islamic State (ISIS) launched an assault on the predominantly Yazidi region of Shingal (Sinjar) in northern Iraq, abducting some 6,417 Yazidi women and children. Many of these victims were subjected to forced labor and sex slavery.
The Yazidi women and children involved in the case in Sweden were held captive and enslaved by ISIS militants for around five months before being transferred into the custody of the convicted woman. There, she “imprisoned and treated them as property for a period of, in most cases, five months,” the statement explained.
The Yazidis were subjected to various types of abuse by their captors who forced them to adhere to Islam, forbade them from using their native language, and subjected them to sexual assault and molestation. Additionally, they were forced to do chores “in a slave-like manner,” and their freedom was severely restricted.
Stockholm’s District Court emphasized that the comprehensive enslavement of members of the Yazidi community by ISIS members was one of the key components in the perpetration of the genocide against them. “The enslavement of Yazidi women and children was a precursor for forced labour, conversion [to Islam], and sex slavery,” said the Court.
The convicted woman was sentenced to 12 years in jail for her involvement in crimes against humanity, genocide, and gross war crimes committed in Raqqa. The injured parties were awarded 150,000 SEK (almost $14,000) each, in compensation.
To date, 3,581 Yazidis abducted by ISIS have been rescued. However, 2,590 of them are still missing, according to statistics provided by the Office for Rescuing Abducted Yazidis.
Furthermore, many of the victims have been rescued from the notorious al-Hol camp in northeast Syria, which houses tens of thousands of ISIS families and supporters. While some of the victims have been found in Syrian regions outside the control of the state, others have even been relocated overseas.