ISIS committed almost unimaginable atrocities against the Yazidi people in 2014, Yazidi men were executed or forced to convert to Islam, women and children, some of whom were only eight, nine years old, ISIS militants were sold in the market and kept as sex slaves. The UN Human Rights Council reported that very young boys were forcibly taken from their families and sent to an ISIS training camp. According to the Nadia Initiative, an organization dedicated to the reconstruction of the regions where the Yazidi population lived, it is reported that the terrorist organization enslaved more than 6,000 women and children and committed mass murders of more than 5,000 men and elderly women, which led to the discovery of more than 80 mass graves throughout Sinjar. To this day, Yazidi women and children are being held captive and enslaved by ISIS families.

Sexual violence as a weapon of war has played an important role in the campaign of terrorist militants to destroy Yazidis of their honor and dignity. This vile tactic was not only justified, but also encouraged by the leaders and radical imams of ISIS, Yazidis were not considered people and the murder of Yazidis, and the trafficking of Yazidi women was not considered something wrong or wrong, but on the contrary, was only encouraged by the leadership of ISIS.

According to Amal Clooney, a human rights lawyer representing the interests of Yazidi women victims of the genocide: "The intention to commit these heinous acts is explained by the purpose of terrorist organizations to carry out ethnic cleansing of the Yazidi community with the deliberate aim of permanently depriving "these women" of the ability to give birth to the next generation of Yazidis."

Constant struggle

Nine years later, many survivors of the genocide are still in danger, and the plight of Yazidis continues. Although the actions of the terrorist organization against Yazidis do not stop from the public's field of view. The search for more than 2,760 Yazidi women and girls who have gone missing has become more complicated over time, but efforts continue to bear fruit. In June 2023, six Yazidi women held by ISIS since 2014 were successfully reunited with their families. The international community should take further action through centralized international coordination to facilitate the safe return of the remaining missing members of the community.

It is also necessary to find ways to bring to justice those responsible for crimes against Yazidis. Despite "clear and convincing evidence" that the militants committed international crimes against Yazidis, efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice were limited due to several factors. Although "the atrocities allegedly committed by ISIS undoubtedly constitute serious crimes of concern to the international community," the International Criminal Court (ICC) faces a jurisdictional problem, given that Syria and Iraq have not signed the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the court. As a result, the ICC has no territorial jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed in these territories. To cope with these restrictions, there have been calls to create an international or regional court to try ISIS members for international crimes, similar to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. However, logistical problems continue to hinder these attempts.