On Aug. 3, 2014, Daesh, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, invaded and occupied Sinjar, in northern Iraq, calling for the extermination and purging of Yazidis from their homeland.

On the first day of the genocide,1,268 Yazidis were murdered. Within weeks, 6,417 Yazidis had been kidnapped, including 3,548 women and girls, who were thrown into sexual slavery and forced labor.

Those who survived the onslaught fled to the Sinjar Mountains for safety, along with other minority groups living in the area. By the time Daesh claimed Sinjar, at least 360,000 Yazidis, or more 65 percent of the entire community, had been displaced.

A few months into the genocide, Yazidis in Sinjar and the US set up the Yazda Organization as a Yazidi-led grassroots emergency response unit to save their community from extinction.

An immediate focus was to harness all stakeholder efforts toward the women of the community. As some Yazidi women began to escape Daesh captivity, the community began to understand that the militants were specifically targeting and enslaving Yazidi women in sexual trafficking trades because of their ethno religious identity.

Fatwas featured in the Daesh magazine Dabiq called for militants to enslave Yazidi women because the Yazidis were classified as “mushriqin” (devil worshippers). It was believed that enslavement, violation and separation of Yazidi women from their families would destroy the community. Yazda is in possession of numerous survivor testimonials revealing that Daesh militants told their victims they would never be taken back after what had been done to them. This became a pillar of the “purification strategy” adopted by the terror group as it began to claim territory.

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