Iraq – UN Report Calls for Care & Justice for Women & Girls Who Suffered Sexual Violence by ISIL & Children Born in ISIL Areas to Have Registered Births & Rights

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

22 August, 2017 – We are releasing a report produced jointly with the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), urging the Iraqi Government to ensure that the thousands of women and girls who survived rape and other forms of sexual violence by ISIL fighters receive care, protection and justice, and that children born as a result of such violence do not face a life of discrimination and abuse.

Women and girls under the control of ISIL, in particular women from the Yezidi and other minority communities, have been especially vulnerable to abuses of human rights and violation of international humanitarian law, including rape and sexual assault, forced displacement, abduction, deprivation of liberty, slavery, forced religious conversion, and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

The High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has said that the physical, mental, and emotional injuries inflicted by ISIL are “almost beyond comprehension,” and that if victims are to rebuild their lives, and those of their children, they need both justice and  redress.

The Iraqi Government has the obligation, under domestic law and international human rights law, to ensure all victims have access to justice and reparations. This obligation includes ensuring accountability of the alleged perpetrators through trials before independent and impartial tribunals, conducted in a gender-sensitive manner so as not to perpetuate victims’ suffering.

The report notes that the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government have taken some positive steps to promote women and children’s rights and to address the needs of those who have suffered abuses at the hands of ISIL. However, the criminal justice system largely fails to ensure the appropriate protection of victims.  Significant legislative and institutional changes are needed, the report says, to facilitate access to justice and to ensure the care and protection of victims in such proceedings.

Despite government efforts to alleviate the suffering of victims and provide services, huge challenges remain. The report stresses the need for women and girls to have access to appropriate medical, psychosocial, financial, livelihood and other means of support.

The report also voices serious concern with regard to tribal agreements reached by representatives of tribes in a number of governorates, which include provisions allowing for forced evictions of families connected to ISIL and their property transferred to victims as reparation.

The situation of hundreds of children born to women in ISIL-controlled areas without birth certificates or whose ISIL-issued documents are not accepted by the Government of Iraq or the Kurdistan Regional Government is also deeply troubling. Birth registration requires the parents to present proof of marital status and two witnesses must confirm the circumstances of the child’s birth – exceedingly difficult in the case of children whose parents may be dead or missing; where the father’s identity is not known; where a child has been abandoned due to stigma or for those who live in IDP camps where no civil status offices or courts operate.

Children who were born in ISIL-controlled areas have the same legal rights as any other Iraqi citizen. The Government must ensure they are protected from marginalisation and abuse. They must not be exposed to discrimination through references on their birth certificate saying they were born out of wedlock or have a father linked to ISIL. Nor should they be left unregistered and as result in danger of statelessness, exploitation and trafficking.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including regarding access to justice; provision of support and care for victims; information and counselling services to reunite separated families, and the importance of birth registration.

__________________________________________________________________________

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21988&LangID=E

Direct Link to Full 29-Page August 2017 UN Report: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IQ/UNAMIReport22Aug2017_EN.pdf