Isis sex slave to FM: ‘Help my people’
SPECIAL REPORT
BY MARTIN WILLIAMS
ESCAPED Isis sex slave Nadia Murad is to make a personal plea to Nicola Sturgeon to help with the resettlement of her fellow survivors. The young Yazidi woman, who was tortured and raped at the hands of Isis militants and has been appointed a UN ambassador, will meet the First Minister on Tuesday as she tries to get help for those who have suffered at the hands of Isis.
She has been campaigning for the EU to look to prosecute members of Isis and establish a safe zone to protect vulnerable minorities.
She is one of a delegation from Yazda, a global Yazidi organisation, who will seek support from Sturgeon at Holyrood for an independent genocide investigation regarding Isis crimes. Yazidis are an ethnically Kurdish religious community persecuted by Isis as alleged “devil worshippers”.
The 21-year-old, who has become the UN’s Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, was among more than 5,000 Yazidi women taken captive when Isis swept through the group’s territories in northern Iraq. She has been speaking out about her horrific experiences at the hands of Isis fighters.
Scots charity worker Fiona Bennett, a board member of Yazda UK, who will be part of the Holyrood delegation said: “There are literally hundreds of thousands of displaced Yazidis and obviously they cannot all come here but they need shelter and safety. Any support, help from the Scottish Government, will be greatly received. This is what we will be addressing with the First Minister.”
Bennett, a former psychiatric nurse from Ardchattan, Argyll and Bute has previously already raised more than £5,000 through a gofundme.com website for Yazda, which sends aid to refugees in Iraq.
The ongoing genocide against the Yazidi people by Isis was recognised by the United States in March and by the United Nations in June. The EU Nadia Murad escaped from isis in November 2014 after three months of abuse and torture has not formally acknowledged the genocide, although the European Parliament asked EU member states to take action in February 2016.
Murad testified to the UN in New York in December to urge more action to protect refugees from the conflict.
She described how she was a student living in the village of Kocho in northern Iraq when Isis fighters rounded up all Yazidis, killing 312 men in an hour and taking the younger women into slavery. After being taken to Mosul, she and the others were held for three days before being “distributed” among fighters.
Some women killed themselves, but Murad said she never considered doing so. She said: “I did not want to kill myself — but I wanted them to kill me.”
After one failed escape attempt, she told the UN, she was beaten up and gang raped by six militants as a form of punishment. Murad escaped successfully in November 2014, after three months of abuse and torture, and made her way via a refugee camp to seek asylum in Stuttgart.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The First Minister is looking forward to meeting Murad and the opportunity to learn about her experiences as a survivor of trafficking.
“The meeting will also enable the First Minister to outline the progress Scotland is making with regard to tackling human trafficking and exploitation and supporting victims of these crimes.”