Nadia Murad Addresses UN Security Council at UNITAD Briefing

In 2017, Nadia Murad was instrumental in drafting and passing UN Security Council Resolution 2379. The resolution called for the creation of an Investigative Team (UNITAD), headed by a Special Adviser, to support efforts to hold ISIS (Da’esh) accountable by collecting, preserving, and storing evidence of ISIS’s atrocities in Iraq.

On May 10th, 2021, UNITAD presented their findings to the UN Security Council. Special Adviser Karim Khan reported, “UNITAD has established clear and convincing evidence that genocide was committed by ISIL against the Yazidis as a religious group.”

However, “Transforming evidence into accountability and justice requires action,” stated Nadia Murad in her address to the Council. Advocating for community wishes, Nadia called on member states to establish international trials and support national efforts to prosecute ISIS for their crimes of genocide and sexual violence.

Legal accountability is critical for the healing of Yazidi survivors, as well as the prevention of future violence. “The evidence collected by UNITAD does not only paint a picture of what happened to Yazidis in 2014. It provides a forecast of what Yazidis and other minorities will suffer in the future if you do not act,” Nadia warned.

With clear evidence that ISIS’s crimes constitute genocide, it is imperative that justice no longer be delayed.

Watch the full briefing here.

Read Nadia Murad’s full remarks below:

President, members of the Security Council, Special Advisor Karim Khan: greetings. It is an honor for me to join you here today as a Yazidi and survivor of ISIS’s atrocities. I would like to start by expressing my gratitude for your support of UNITAD and relaying to you my community’s hopes for the future.

When I spoke before this council in 2017, alongside my friend and lawyer Amal Clooney, we asked for your support to ensure that ISIS does not succeed in its goal of eradicating the Yazidi people from Iraq. Passing Resolution 2379 was a vital step, and I am grateful to the members of this council for supporting UNITAD’s creation and ongoing work.

UNITAD’s work presents opportunities for justice. The Investigative Team is contributing evidence to a number of ongoing proceedings and a handful of survivors have been able to face their abusers in court. A few months ago, I was able to bury two of my brothers along with over a hundred victims of the Kocho massacre thanks to the exhumation of mass graves and identification of remains. But we cannot rest on these accomplishments because much work remains. With successful investigations, the Council must now prioritize and accelerate concrete action to address the findings.

The evidence collected by Mr. Khan and the UNITAD team affirms the conclusion reached by the United Nations in 2016 – ISIS’s crimes against Yazidis constitute Genocide. Formal evidence collection is, of course, critical for courts and history books. However, today I call on the council to examine the human lives impacted by UNITAD’s mandate.

The commission’s progress is not only remarkable for its innovations in digital platforms, artificial intelligence, and data analysis. The findings are monumental because each data point represents a human life and evidences their suffering. Together, this evidence tells the story of the Yazidi people. Who we lost. What we survived.

Yazidis experienced the worst atrocities known to humankind. I will never forget the grief in my mother’s eyes when she realized her sons had been executed – not knowing she would face the same fate. I can still feel my niece’s hand being ripped out of mine as we were separated and loaded onto buses like cattle. And I can still calculate what my body was worth to those who bought and sold it.

For nearly seven years, Yazidis have been unable to move forward and resume our lives. Over 200,000 Yazidis remain in internally displaced person camps only hours away from their homeland where they wait - hoping for justice and the restoration of Sinjar’s security, governance, and infrastructure. And thousands of families continue to hope for the day when their relatives’ remains will be exhumed from mass graves, so they can bury and honor their loved ones. But the true horror exists for the 2,800 women and children who remain in ISIS captivity.

Evidence of ISIS’s genocide paints a clear picture. ISIS never attempted to hide their intentions. Mass graves were clearly marked and decrees issued on the immorality of Yazidism. Manuals were published to codify the slave trade and auctions selling Yazidi women still take place online. Their intent to eradicate our community, religion, and culture was declared far and wide. ISIS was proud of their genocide.

Despite all of the horrors I just described, Yazidis continue to work together to rebuild their homeland, restart their livelihoods, and advocate for accountability. They are eager to take part in the local governance and security of the greater community. Yazidis know that stabilizing Sinjar is the best hope for preventing further persecution. Yet, our progress is constrained by politics, competing interests, and inaction. We try to turn the page, only to find there is no pen with which to write our next chapter.

The international community can give the Yazidi community the pen – I ask you to help us write a new chapter. Legal accountability for ISIS’s crimes would dramatically impact every aspect of my community’s recovery.

I firmly believe public trials and recognition of the genocide will help avert future violence and facilitate the healing of survivors. International monitoring is needed to ensure that Iraq’s national courts see justice through. And international tribunals are needed to address the universal magnitude of ISIS’s crimes against humanity.

Amal and I called on this council five years ago to create a clear plan for prosecution. We asked you to refer this genocide to the ICC or establish a court by treaty. We were met with empty promises and competing priorities. Justice was deferred. Yazidis have been persecuted for centuries. These abuses have gone unchecked. When impunity is accepted, violence is repeated. Accountability is essential to defeating ISIS and formally acknowledging the trauma survivors continue to endure.

Survivors have spent years reliving and sharing their experiences, as I have today. Evidence has been found, but we are still searching for the political will to prosecute. It is time for the international community to do more than listen. It is time to act. If world leaders have the political will to act on this evidence, then justice is surely within reach. ISIS’s genocide will not come to an end until all Yazidis can live a life of dignity in their homeland.

The Yazidis may be a minority community within Iraq, but the treatment of this case has major implications for the human rights of people everywhere. We must ask ourselves what message our collective conscience wants to send to women who have been used as weapons of war. Will we turn a blind eye to ethnic cleansing and sexual violence? Will we look on with pity murmuring “never again” until the next atrocity grabs our attention? Or will we finally say, “your body, your life, and your rights matter as much as mine.”

This is the potential of UNITAD’s evidence: to hold perpetrators accountable for Genocide and crimes against humanity. But transforming evidence into justice and accountability requires action. The international community has shown that it will act to counter ISIS’s terrorism. But do you stand against genocide? Do you stand against sexual violence? Will you stand with Yazidis?

Thank you.