Yazidis: Attempts to recover and struggle to survive in post-ISIS era
Katia Zagoritou
Part - 2
ISIS’s attack and atrocities, apart from the evident deep trauma and the displacement of Yezidis, have also raised serious concerns over their religious identification and highlighted the existing internal divisions between traditionalists and modernizers, driven mainly by the diaspora.
Both currents stress the necessity of their stance vis-à-vis their customs in order to ensure the religion’s endurance and survival focusing, inter alia, on the honor issue and the exclusive endogamy which constitute practice of central importance to the Yezidis. Thus, following the defeat of ISIS and the subsequent liberation of the captured, the introduction or not of the exception to the endogamy rule with respect to women - victims of sexual violence by ISIS’s members - who have managed to escape or were liberated, and their reintegration into the community, has hitherto constituted crucial point of contention between the two currents.
Within this context, the 24 April 2019 decision of the Yezidi Supreme Spiritual Council over the acceptance of rescued women implying also the same for their children born of rape by ISIS members –constituted a serious step which was received with great relief by women victims. However, three days later, on 27 April, as an evident result of political pressure, the statement was retracted and another one was reissued clarifying that these children are not finally accepted, driving Yazidi mothers of these children to despair.
Tags: #yazidisinfo #aboutyazidi #newsyezidi #genocideyezidi #humanrights
Yazidis: Attempts to recover and struggle to survive in post-ISIS era
Katia Zagoritou
Part - 2
ISIS’s attack and atrocities, apart from the evident deep trauma and the displacement of Yezidis, have also raised serious concerns over their religious identification and highlighted the existing internal divisions between traditionalists and modernizers, driven mainly by the diaspora.
Both currents stress the necessity of their stance vis-à-vis their customs in order to ensure the religion’s endurance and survival focusing, inter alia, on the honor issue and the exclusive endogamy which constitute practice of central importance to the Yezidis. Thus, following the defeat of ISIS and the subsequent liberation of the captured, the introduction or not of the exception to the endogamy rule with respect to women - victims of sexual violence by ISIS’s members - who have managed to escape or were liberated, and their reintegration into the community, has hitherto constituted crucial point of contention between the two currents.
Within this context, the 24 April 2019 decision of the Yezidi Supreme Spiritual Council over the acceptance of rescued women implying also the same for their children born of rape by ISIS members –constituted a serious step which was received with great relief by women victims. However, three days later, on 27 April, as an evident result of political pressure, the statement was retracted and another one was reissued clarifying that these children are not finally accepted, driving Yazidi mothers of these children to despair.
Tags: #yazidisinfo #aboutyazidi #newsyezidi #genocideyezidi #humanrights
