“Yazidi survivors groups have embraced a decision by the community’s elders to allow children who are the result of rape by members of Islamic State to return with their Yazidi mothers to their homelands in Iraq.
“The landmark ruling by the Yazidi Supreme Spiritual Council has cleared the way for hundreds of women to return from Syria, or Europe, with children that were born to them while captives of the terrorist group.
“Until the decision made this week, women who refused to be separated from their children had been exiled by their own community, with many forced into detention camps in north-east Syria. Only those who had agreed to surrender newborns or infants had been allowed to return to their families in northern Iraq.” The Guardian
This act of compassion by a community with very strong traditions (the children must follow their father’s religion, that is, they will not be Yazidi but Muslim) must be taken as an example by the rest of the world grappling with the aftermath of IS’ failed caliphate.
It is true that the Yazidi women were enslaved and made pregnant against their will, whilst many other women from other parts may of the world travelled to Syria to marry IS fighters and their return to their countries of origin may be seen as a threat if they still harbour sympathies towards the terrorist organisation. The message from SriLanka catastrophic attack to churches and hotels being “we have not been defeated”.
But the message from the Yazidi community is “the children are innocent”. In a world ruled by ruthlessness even the smallest drop of compassion opens the heart to a more humanised future.
