Yazidi Former Sex Slaves: UK

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

rose—

[Brendan O'Hara]

I will give way briefly to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

[Brendan O'Hara]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I know that he is a great champion of minority communities in the middle east and I entirely accept what he says. I will develop that point later in my speech.

[Graham Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is very timely that he has brought this subject to Westminster Hall. I was fortunate enough to be on the edge of Mosul last week and I saw six of the camps for internally displaced persons, which is why I have come here today to contribute to the debate.

However, I would like to ask the hon. Gentleman a question of fundamental importance. We all want to help those people who are victims of sexual slavery. The British Government and the Ministry of Defence have provided forty 50 calibre machine guns to the Peshmerga, to try to help to relieve the situation in Iraq. In addition to wanting to help the Yazidis, does he support the position of the British Government and the MOD in helping the Peshmerga?

[Brendan O'Hara]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and yes I do. However, that is an entirely separate issue to the one I am considering today. While we support and will continue to support the military defeat of Daesh, I will concentrate today specifically on this tiny minority—the members of the Yazidi community—who are in desperate need of our help.

These innocent women and children—whose plight, in many ways, has become emblematic of the base depravity and callous barbarism of Daesh—need our help. These innocent women and children have witnessed the slaughter of their husbands, their sons and their brothers as Daesh has attempted genocide to try to erase all trace of the Yazidi community, and they need our help. These innocent women and children, who come from a very traditional and conservative religious community, and may well have been physically and psychologically irreparably damaged, need our help.

My motion today simply says to the Government: when Mosul is liberated and these innocent Yazidi women and children are free from the sexual enslavement of Daesh, please do not let them become lost in the throng of civilians fleeing Mosul towards the refugee camps. I ask the Government to recognise what these women and children have gone through; to see them as the unique case that they are. Together let us find a specific UK response that recognises the unspeakable atrocities that they have suffered, simply because of who they are and what they believe.

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[Brendan O'Hara]

I absolutely concur, and the full force of the law must be brought against any British citizen who is in any way involved in what has been happening within Iraq and Syria.

I am sure that everyone in Westminster Hall today is very well aware of the catalogue of atrocities carried out by Daesh against the Yazidi community. I will not go into too much detail, but it is worth reminding ourselves of the level of barbarism displayed by Daesh in its genocidal assault; some of it beggars belief. At the start of this year, I arranged for a young Yazidi woman to come to the UK to speak to this Parliament. Her name was Nadia Murad and the personal testimony that she gave that evening in February will live long with everyone who heard it.

Until August 2014, Nadia lived quietly in the village of Kocho with her mother, her brothers and her sisters. Then Daesh arrived, with the sole intention of completely destroying that small community through murder, rape and kidnap.

That evening in February, Nadia told us in her own words that

“They used rape as the means of destruction for Yazidi women and girls, ensuring these women will never return to a normal life.”

Days after Nadia was taken captive, she had to watch from a school building as six of her brothers were executed. Thereafter, she was taken to Mosul, where she says she was among thousands of women and children being held in the city. It was there that she was given to a Daesh fighter. She was repeatedly tortured and raped by the man, before one night, in desperation, she tried to escape. She was caught and punished. She said, about the man,

“he beat me up, forced me to undress, and put me in a room with six militants. They continued to commit crimes to my body until I became unconscious.”

Three months later, remarkably, and showing incredible courage, she attempted another escape. This time she was successful and is now resettled in Germany.

[Graham Jones]

As I said, I was in the camps last week. What the hon. Gentleman says is very powerful and true. Just how bad the situation with the Yazidis is cannot be overstated. When I asked the people who work in the camps, “How bad is this? What is the youngest person who has been raped and abused by Daesh?”, the answer that came back was, “A two-year-old”. That is the youngest person they have had in the camps who has been raped and sold as a sex slave. I just want to put that on the record, to reinforce the hon. Gentleman’s point.

[Brendan O'Hara]

I genuinely thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is unthinkable to any normal person what the community have had to suffer. I do not want to go into too much detail because I believe it is far too upsetting, but the detail is there for people to see. But what I will say in praise of Nadia Murad, who was a teenage girl at the time, is that rather than hiding away from the world she has devoted her life to highlighting the plight of the people of her community, pleading with the world not to turn its back on them.

[Graham Jones]

I want to add that it is not just women; young boys are being sold for sexual slavery as well, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will mention that.

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[Brendan O'Hara]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. We must commit to helping. We cannot stand by and leave it to others to take up what is a very challenging position.

I would like to point out briefly how the Baden-Württemberg scheme works. Dr Kizilhan, himself a German-Yazidi, and his team go to northern Iraq to identify women and children they believe they can best help. The selection is based on the following criteria: first, whether the woman or girl has escaped from Daesh captivity; secondly, whether there is clear evidence of severe abuse and psychological damage from their period of captivity; and, thirdly, whether treatment in Germany will help, beyond what is available locally. If those three criteria are met, with the approval of the Kurdish Regional Government the women and her children are offered refuge and intensive treatment in Germany. As I said, there are currently 1,100 former Daesh sex slaves, both women and children, in the Baden-Württemberg area—the youngest is eight, the oldest is 55 and the average age is about 19.

In Germany, once the women and children are sufficiently settled in shelters, they receive not only specialist trauma counselling but German language lessons, and for those who are of school age it is compulsory for them to attend school. I understand from what I have read that the results of the programme are very encouraging. Indeed, some of the women now have jobs and are able rent their own apartments. Admittedly, recovery varies considerably, and for some it will take much longer, but Dr Blume told me that in Germany they have not had a single case of suicide, whereas in the camps in Iraq suicide among traumatised women is, tragically, fairly common.

This is a programme that works and I believe that the Government would do well to look at it very closely, to see how this country can directly help those innocent victims of Daesh. When we spoke in September in New York, Dr Blume was clear that any Government or Administration wishing to establish a programme to help these women and children would be welcome to avail themselves of the tried and tested model currently in place. Germany provides a safe haven for the women and children, and I can see absolutely no reason why the United Kingdom cannot also do that.

[Graham Jones]

My experiences last week showed me that a lot of the Yazidi women are traumatised because their children have been taken from them. All of a family’s members are not located in the camps—they did not escape together. One of the psychological problems the women have is coming to terms with the fact that some of their children remained in Mosul and were sold on as sex slaves, and they do not know where they are. They do not want to be located further away from Mosul. They want to be located back there, so that they can go and find those children, who are being repeat sold on as sex slaves.

[Brendan O'Hara]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. It comes down to choice. The women are given the choice to go to Germany; they are not forcibly taken there. Many women who apply do not go; likewise, many women who could go choose not to.

As I said at the start of my speech, it looks increasingly likely that the people of Mosul, having been held captive by Daesh for more than two years, could be liberated within weeks. In the immediate aftermath, there will be an urgent need to care for civilians fleeing the fighting. In that maelstrom, we must ensure that the Yazidi women and children, who have been most wickedly and cruelly affected by Daesh, are given the care they urgently require and deserve. If learning from what others have done is the best way to do it, I urge the Government to do that and to act quickly and decisively.

As I understand it—the Minister can confirm this—the Government’s policy for victims of modern slavery recognises that up to two and a half years of discretionary leave to remain can be given precisely in such cases as that of the Yazidis. If that is the case, I urge her to move quickly to ensure that the United Kingdom becomes a safe haven for those victims.

Time is running out. I hope that the liberation of Mosul is near, but let us be honest: if we do not do something now, we will not do anything. If we do not do anything, history will be our judge, and I predict it will pass a particularly harsh judgment on us.

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[Brendan O'Hara]

rose—

[Graham Jones]

rose—

[Sarah Newton]

I will give way once I have finished this point. We are providing psychiatric help and all sorts of other help on the ground to the people who have experienced these horrendous things.

[Sarah Newton]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to provide good psychological and other support for people in Mosul right now. My understanding is that the available DFID funding is being put in place. I am sure that more can be done. Because we have so little time this morning, I will ensure that the DFID Minister who is funding this work writes to the hon. Gentleman and other Members who have raised the issue this morning to ensure that we communicate exactly what is happening on the ground, including the amount of money, support and specialists we are sending over there to support local people in delivering these things.

[Graham Jones]

I concur with the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara). There are very few mental health services. There are also very few non-governmental organisations operating in the field of mental health services in northern Iraq, as he said. It is a huge problem. The first thing the British Government could do to try to resolve the situation is ensure that the Yazidis are kept in a Yazidi camp, with other populations, such as Arabs—the Yazidis may fear them due to the mental issues and torment they have experienced—located in a different camp. At the moment, they are in the same camp, and that is proving exceedingly destructive. The first thing the British Government and the Minister could do is ensure that Yazidis are looked after in a camp of their own.

[Sarah Newton]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We are part of a global coalition of 67 countries working hard to support the Iraqi Government as Mosul is liberated to ensure that civilians are protected and the humanitarian impact is minimised. We are also looking at long-term programmes of reconciliation and peace in the area. Good progress is being made, with several dozen settlements already set up.

I happened to visit a fantastic NGO in my constituency on Friday, called ShelterBox, where I met someone who is a frequent visitor to Iraq. ShelterBox is part of the team of British NGOs setting up new camps literally as we speak. Its intention is to provide support in a co-ordinated way. With people flooding out of Mosul, it wants to ensure that each of those communities is properly looked after, with all the issues about their different faith backgrounds and the levels of trauma they have faced properly taken into consideration. I heard at first hand from people who are in Iraq and are going to Iraq—I hope they have arrived safely today—about the work that is going on. The best thing I can do is ask the Secretary of State for International Development to provide the quantum of the activity that is going on. Members will appreciate that it is a fast-moving, dynamic situation, but we will ensure that they get the latest information about the number of people going there, the type of support and the specialist provision that has been called for that focuses on the Yazidis.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute asked another important question, which was about whether we would be doing everything we can to ensure that data and evidence are being gathered so that we can secure prosecutions. I reassure him that we are doing everything to collect and preserve evidence so that it can be used by judicial bodies to make a judgment about the atrocities that have been taking place. Any UK nationals who have gone there and are participating in those atrocities can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in our domestic courts. Our absolute priority is to do our best to support the victims now. It is important that we send out a clear message that people cannot act with impunity. The appalling atrocities will be dealt with and people will be brought to justice. I hope that reassures Members that we take this matter extremely seriously and are doing everything we can to help the victims of the appalling situation in Iraq.

Question put and agreed to.