HRC57 – ID with Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic: Statement by Legal Action Worldwide

57th Session of the Human Rights Council

ID with Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic

Commissioners,   

The Commission’s recent paper commemorating 10 years since the Yazidi Genocide reminds us of the need to continue to work towards supporting Yazidi genocide survivors on their journey towards justice and rehabilitation. LAW wishes to take this opportunity to draw further attention to other ethnic minorities impacted by Daesh’s occupation of Syria and their demands for accountability. Daesh crimes committed against the Yazidi were also inflicted on other ethnic minorities, including Kurdish, Turkman, Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, and Shabbak peoples.  

LAW works with ethnic minority survivors in Iraq who are demanding their rights be vindicated and that global calls for accountability and rehabilitation also support them. They are Christian and Shabbak from northern Iraq that were detained or abducted by Daesh and subjected to detention and torture. Some male survivors were forced to witness mass  executions. Boy survivors were separated from their families, forced to spend months to years in Qur’anic schools, where they were abused, then sent to military camps where they were trained as combat soldiers. Boys were often then deployed to various areas in Syria where they were forced to fight for Daesh on frontlines. Women and girl survivors were enslaved and traded or forcibly married. Most of the female survivors LAW has spoken with were subjected to sexual violence, including rape.  

Despite experiencing much of the same conduct as Yazidis, other ethnic minorities have not raised the same international attention or received equal efforts towards accountability and reparations.  Long-term rehabilitation and justice efforts focus on the Yazidi community exclusively. For example, the Yazidi Survivors Law passed in Iraq in 2021 is a trailblazing reparations program for the region, yet non-Yazidi minorities  criticize it for excluding them in practice even when they  qualify as “survivors” under the law.  

As we mark 10 years since Daesh swept across Iraq and Syria, instituting a reign of terror on the Yazidi community, LAW calls on the Commission to: 

• Investigate and report on Daesh crimes committed against non-Yazidi ethnic minorities and to call for justice for these communities specifically. 

LAW encourages Member States to: 

• Pursue justice and accountability for Daesh crimes that targeted non-Yazidi minorities as such through the use of exterritorial jurisdiction; and 

• Ensure reparations and rehabilitation programs, including relocation priorities for those seeking refuge, also target non-Yazidi minorities subjected to Daesh crimes. 

Thank you