MESSAGE
| DATE | 2018-11-21 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Sex Slaves and women in captivity
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Most of the world knows her as a survivor of ISIS brutality, but Nadia
Murad, who has tried to loosen shackles of the past, recently announced
her plans to be married. Her engagement comes at a time when members of
her Yazidi community, an ancient religious minority, face an uncertain
future in northern Iraq.
In August 2014, Murad was one of thousands of Yazidis who were captured
by ISIS and forced into sexual slavery. Three months later, she escaped
through the door that one of her captors left unlocked.
This Man Has Freed Hundreds Of Yazidis Captured By ISIS. Thousands
Remain Missing
Parallels
This Man Has Freed Hundreds Of Yazidis Captured By ISIS. Thousands
Remain Missing
Murad shared her painful story with international media outlets over and
over so that the world would learn about what happened to Yazidis,
becoming a voice for captive women and girls in the process.
Today, 25, Murad is a goodwill ambassador at the United Nations who
advocates for survivors of human trafficking.
Her fiancé, Abid Shamdeen, 30, is a former interpreter for the U.S. Army
and a human rights activist. "Despite all the difficulties that we were
going through, he was always there. He was supportive," Murad tells NPR.
Shamdeen says of Murad, "Obviously she's a very brave woman. She is
courageous, she's smart, she's strong. And she's a fighter."
They grew up on different sides of Mount Sinjar, an enclave for Yazidis
— she from the south and he from the north. But they met in 2016, a few
months after Murad spoke at the U.N. about ISIS atrocities.
Murad's announcement of their engagement on Sunday elicited warm wishes
in the community, as Yazidis look forward from tents in displacement
camps, unfinished buildings and homes in Iraq, Germany and the United
States.
Yazidi women and girls who escape ISIS or are rescued face an array of
new problems, Pari Ibrahim, founder and executive director of the Free
Yezidi Foundation, tells NPR. "A lot of the women have difficulty trying
to build a new future. They don't have a boyfriend or get engaged; they
are living in the past. It's not easy for them to switch back to the
here and now and to live daily life."
It is believed that some 3,000 Yazidi women and girls remain enslaved,
four years after ISIS swept into Sinjar in northern Iraq. "We've also
heard [from psychologists] that women aren't coming back because they've
had children from ISIS and they're afraid to come back," Ibrahim says.
Naomi Kikoler, deputy director of the Genocide Prevention Center at the
U.S. Holocaust Museum, tells NPR about the lack of access to consistent
mental and physical support. "For women still living in northern Iraq,
in displacement camps, in some cases it's quite difficult for them to
receive regular physical and mental health services."
Others are grappling with having been forced to convert to Islam, the
uncertainty about the fates of their loved ones and whether they will
see their captors brought to justice, Kikoler says.
Still, in the aftermath of the atrocities forced on captives, a cultural
shift may be occurring, she says. "As a result of ISIS, you have
essentially this forced generational change where there is going to be
an increased empowerment of women. They've had to be very self-reliant."
Yazidi Women Finally Go To School, Defying Former ISIS Rulers — And
Their Own Parents
Parallels
Yazidi Women Finally Go To School, Defying Former ISIS Rulers — And
Their Own Parents
Shamdeen wants his engagement to Murad to encourage fellow Yazidis to
welcome survivors back into their tight-knit community. "I'm hoping the
step we took will be an example for others to marry survivors."
A date has not yet been set for the wedding. Surviving family members
will be invited, and if the houses that ISIS destroyed are rebuilt and
stability returns to Sinjar, Shamdeen says, maybe they will get married
back home.
Murad says their engagement shows Yazidi survivors that "it's possible
to live their lives again and to not believe the propaganda of ISIS —
that they will not be accepted back into the community."
She adds, "The hope of ISIS was to break the Yazidi community. But for
survivors especially, going back to their lives and getting married and
making a life and working, it's basically making sure ISIS did not succeed."
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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