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Europe, a Land of Refuge for Women?

Internal conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and other countries go beyond pure geopolitical or economic control, it is also caused by religious and ethnic differences.

The Woman Post | Alexandra Domínguez

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The Yazidis are a minority of Kurdish origin present in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and Russia.
This religion of pre-Islamic origin dates to 2000 BC. and its holy city is Lalish (Mosul, Iraq)
In 2014, a fundamentalist group with a jihadist Islamist doctrine self-proclaimed a caliphate in Mosul, which they called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as Daesh or ISIS, and seized power in those nations.
From that moment on, religious persecution and massacres became more frequent, since the Islamic State is radical in origin and attacks those who do not profess the same doctrine, razing and destroying populations, murdering men, and raping and kidnapping women. The Yazidis are one of the persecuted groups, this religion has several 800,000 to a million people distributed in several countries, since it is not a religion that is chosen, it is Yazidis who are born within this ethnic group, of the same way in which a marriage cannot be celebrated outside of it.
Many men of Yazidi origin have been killed, and the women of this minority kidnapped and raped.
A member of the Islamic State could not marry a Yazidi woman, which many say is the main reason young women are kidnapped by the fundamentalist group.
Such was the case of Nadia Murad, a 21-year-old girl who was kidnapped, beaten, tortured, and raped in August 2014 in Iraq.
During that year in that country alone, 6,400 women were officially kidnapped.
Sometime later Nadia managed to escape from her captors and from that moment became a staunch activist against that regime, representing the face of the refugee struggle, human trafficking, and genocide, which led the young woman to be declared Ambassador of Goodwill for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the UN.
In 2015 she moved to Germany as she benefited from an asylum program for refugees; she founded an organization to help the victims and make the conflict visible.
In 2016, under the legal representation of the lawyer Amal Clooney, she started legal action against ISIS.
In 2017 she wrote a book about her experience with Isis titled: «I will be the last:
Story of my captivity and my fight against the Islamic State».
In 2018 she won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Currently, her struggle to achieve equality between men and women continues, she dreams of a world where women are not subjugated, enslaved, outraged, and violated, she suffered firsthand gender discrimination and also religious discrimination, and advocates because no other woman is discriminated against and subjected, and because no other people are persecuted for their ethnicity or religion, and exterminated. With her foundation, she helps other women to empower themselves and take control of their destinies.
She tells about how the violent incursions of ISIS leave behind terror and death -her own family was exterminated, including her mother-, those who survive to flee and also expose themselves to dehydration and death when entering inhospitable lands and with high temperatures, Those who manage to save themselves arrive in the refugee camps, with their families disintegrated and their hearts, dreams, and dignity broke.
Some, like Nadia, benefit from programs that relocate them to other European countries and give them a second chance, while others must remain for years in those fields waiting for an opportunity.

 

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