The All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group (PHRG) held this meeting to hear from Ms Murad about her and her family’s experiences, further to testimony she gave at the UN Security Council.

We would like to thank Brendan O’Hara MP for chairing this meeting.

The main points raised were as follows:

• Ms Murad was one of over than 5,000 Yazidi women taken captive when ISIS swept through territories in northern Iraq.  
• She was living in the village of Kocho as a student when ISIS fighters rounded up all the Yazidis, killing 312 men in an hour and taking the younger women into slaver
• They were then taken to Mosul and “distributed” among ISIS fighters.
• After one failed escape attempt she was beaten up and gang raped by six fighters.
• She escaped successfully in November 2014, after three months of abuse and torture, and made her way via a refugee camp to seek asylum in Germany.
• Around 3400 women and girls remain in ISIS captivity.
• She called upon the UK to help take the Yazidi cause to the International Criminal Court or establish a Special Tribunal Court to try the crimes committed by ISIS.
• The UK can also assist by providing forensic assistance in order to identify bodies in mass graves found in liberated areas.
• She called on the international community to provide assistance so that the women and girls who remain in captivity can be freed.

The PHRG continues to raise the plight of Yazidi women and girls in Iraq and Syria.