Mr. Speaker, I am standing in the House today to speak to the important issue of genocide against the Yazidi people and the actions that we need to take now to react.
Canada claims to stand for a lot of things on the world stage. We say we are a place of refuge for those in the world who are persecuted. We say we are committed to eliminating violence against women and children. We say that sexual assault and rape are wrong and we will stand against it. Therefore, I am here today to plead with the House on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves, to ask the current government to have mercy and to take action now to rescue the Yazidis.
The Yazidis are a religious minority from northern Iraq. Theirs is one of the most ancient religions in the Middle East. They have their own religion, language, and culture.
The Yazidis do not have protected person status in their country, which means that members of the religion can be killed, raped, and enslaved with impunity. Refugee camps are not safe havens for Yazidis because they are full of Muslims who are so fiercely opposed to Yazidi religion and culture that the Yazidis fear for their lives.
Many Christians find themselves in similar predicaments. They cannot take refuge in these camps because they fear persecution. Yazidis in refugee camps are not safe and may be segregated because of either security concerns or persecution.
The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that some Yazidis are considered internally displaced while others are considered refugees. Depending on their status, there can be significant differences in the aid available to them, including access to food, drinking water, shelter, and medical care.
The area around Mosul is full of trapped and terrified civilians, but as Iraqi forces and their allies move to wrest this city from the militants of the Islamic State, one group finds itself particularly desperate and in peril. Scores, perhaps even hundreds of Yazidi women and girls enslaved by the Islamic State more than two years ago are thought to remain captive in Iraq's second-largest city, as the U.S.-backed offensive gets under way in earnest. Activists fear for the lives of these women and children, even amidst hopes that the extremist group's grip on the city could be broken.
Thousands of Yazidi women and children were seized, and men and boys killed or forcibly enlisted in the military, when their traditional heartland was overrun by the Islamic State in August 2015. By a UN estimate earlier this year, 3,200 women and children are still caught in the maw of a vast slave-holding network extending across the group's self-declared but now shrinking caliphate, encompassing parts of Syria and Iraq.
Human rights groups and activists believe that most of the Yazidi captives were sold as slaves or given as gifts to fighters in Islamic State-held areas of Syria. However, some either have spent the duration of their captivity in Mosul or found themselves back in the city after forced journeys between other Islamic State bastions, passed hand to hand like cattle, as their husbands were killed in battle, traded them away, or offered them as presents to relatives and fellow fighters.
Those who have escaped or have been ransomed have described conditions there as grimly similar to other areas where the Islamic State holds sway. Cruel, medieval torments are a feature of daily life, coupled with harrowing sexual and domestic servitude in the households of fighters. Enslaved women are routinely raped and beaten.
Global efforts to help are under way. We have heard about some of those today.
Amal Clooney, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, specializing in international law and human rights law, has confirmed that she will be representing Yazidi ISIS survivor, Nadia Murad, and other victims of the Yazidi genocide. Amal will serve as their council in their effort to secure accountability for the genocide, sexual enslavement, and trafficking of Yazidi girls and women by the militant group, the Islamic State in Iraq. Efforts to achieve accountability will include seeking an International Criminal Court investigation and prosecution of the crimes committed against Nadia Murad and the Yazidi community.
Nadia Murad is a 21-year-old victim of ISIS crimes in Iraq and one of the thousands of Yazidi women who were abducted and enslaved by ISIS. She was brutally raped by more than 12 ISIS members over a period of three months. After her escape, Nadia spoke out about her experiences to draw attention to the ongoing genocide.
ISIS attacks began the genocide. The attacks have resulted in the death of an estimated 5,000 civilians, the enslavement of at least 2,000 women and girls, and the displacement of 400,000 people from the Yazidi homelands in Sinjar, the Nineveh plains, and Syria.
When asked why she decided to take on the case, Amal Clooney stated that the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the U.S. government, and the U.K. House of Commons have all recognized that there is genocide being perpetrated by ISIS against the Yazidis.
How can it be that the most serious crimes known to humanity are being carried out before our eyes, but are not being prosecuted? We know that thousands of Yazidi civilians have been killed and thousands of Yazidi women have been enslaved by a terrorist organization that has publicly proclaimed its genocidal intent. We know that systemic rapes have taken place, and they are still taking place, yet no one is being held to account.
The situation facing the Yazidi people has also been internationally recognized. In June of this year, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a report stating that the Yazidi people are victims of genocide. The report also outlined possible remedies to the situation.
Shortly after that, the Canadian government formally took the same position on the Yazidi people, but it has not taken any concrete action to date.
Others have recognized this terrible situation and have begun to help. Canada should be helping, but from what we know we have only rescued nine Yazidi families out of the more than 50,000 refugees who have been brought to Canada so far. This is an absolute shame. Most of the Yazidis who are currently being persecuted came from Nineveh. Do you remember Nineveh from your historical studies? This was the place that—