Despite the fact that the report deals with a country outside the Caucasus, it reflects the situation, statistics about Yazidi people living in Iraq. The report touched on a wide range of rights and freedoms. 

The report touched upon numerous facts of arbitrary deprivation of life and other illegal or politically motivated murders, disappearances, facts of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The report noted that on August 1, 2022, the KRG's Office for the Rescue of Kidnapped Yazidis stated that 2717 (1273 women and 1444 men) of the 6417 Yazidis kidnapped by ISIS in 2014 were still missing. Members of other minorities have also been victims of human rights abuses committed by ISIS terrorist forces. Although there are no exact numbers, press sources and contacts estimate that between 1,200 and 1,300 Turkmen have been kidnapped since 2014, up to 600 of them women and 130 children.

The report is replete with evidence of physical abuse, punishment, and torture: "...reports by international human rights groups say that government forces, including the Federal Police, NSS, PMF, and Asayish, have mistreated prisoners and detainees, especially Sunni Arabs."

The report noted that "...on December 27, the Council of Ministers approved a prime ministerial decree restoring ownership of homes and residential land to thousands of Iraqi Yazidis from Sinjar. The decree paves the way for an end to the discriminatory policy in place since 1975 that denied these citizens the right to own their homes. In June, the Council of Representatives (COR) allocated 25 billion dinars ($19 million) to implement a law to support Yazidis and other survivors of the 2014 ISIS genocide. In August, in cooperation with an NGO, the government opened a branch of the Survivors Office in Sinjar as part of the Yazidi Genocide Survivors Law.

According to the center, as of August, 40 percent of the IDPs (internally displaced persons) throughout IRR were Sunni Arabs, 30 percent were Yazidis, 13 percent were Kurds (several denominations), and 7 percent were Christians. The remaining 10 percent were from other religious minorities. Despite the difficult economic and security situation in the region, KRG officials reported that protecting the rights of these minorities was a top priority. People in some IDP camps require government permission to return to their areas of origin, and government and security officials frequently denied this permission to displaced families suspected of having ties to ISIS. Because of this perceived affiliation, these households faced problems obtaining civil documentation and had limited freedom of movement, including the ability to seek medical treatment, due to the risk of arrest or inability to return to the camps where they resided.

There were between 800,000 and 1.4 million Christians until 2002, but that number has reportedly fallen to less than 150,000, living mostly in the Nineveh Plain. Only a very small portion of the country's population, 400,000 to 500,000 Yazidis, returned to their homes, with an estimated return rate of 35 percent in Sinjar, including non-Yazidis. Many chose to remain in the camps, stating that the lack of reconstruction plans or utilities and insecurity discouraged them from returning home.

There have been limited efforts to implement the comprehensive Sinjar Agreement signed by the government and the KRG in 2020, which included expanded reconstruction efforts to support the voluntary return of displaced Yazidis.

...In the absence of a coherent nationwide plan to document the children of Iraqi mothers and fathers from ISIS, these children were at risk of statelessness. The Yazidi community more readily welcomed Yazidi women survivors of ISIS captivity, but not children born as a result of rape by ISIS fighters...International NGOs have found shelter for some Yazidi women with children. The ISIS Genocide Survivors Act does not contain specific provisions regarding the status or benefits for children born to ISIS fighters and their mothers, especially children born as a result of sexual violence.

The practice reported in 2021 by NGOs, where courts changed the registration of Yazidi women to Muslim women against their will because of their forced marriage to ISIS fighters, remained legal for a year. The KRG provided women with additional legal protections by establishing the Supreme Council for Women and the Women's Rights Observatory to enforce the law and prevent and respond to discrimination, but these protections were inconsistently applied.  

...The population of Iraq included Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and Shabaks, as well as ethnic and religious minorities, including Chaldeans, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis, Sabean Mandeans, Bahai, Kakai, and very small numbers of Jews. There was also a small Roma community, as well as an estimated 1.5 to 2 million citizens of African descent who lived mostly in Basra and the surrounding provinces. Because religion, politics, and ethnicity were closely linked, it was difficult to classify many cases of discrimination as based solely on ethnicity or religion. The law does not allow certain religious groups, including Bahai, Zoroastrians to register according to their professed religion, which remains unrecognized and illegal under Iraqi federal law. The law also prohibits Muslims from converting to another religion. This law was rarely enforced in the KRG, and people were generally allowed to convert to other religious denominations without interference from the KRG.

Read the full report at the link www.state.gov/reports