ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi government has allocated monthly salaries to over 2,400 Yazidi women and girls who survived Islamic State (ISIS) captivity, under the Yazidi Survivors Law.
Sarab Ilias, head of the Yazidis affairs office at the Iraqi ministry of labor and social affairs, told Rudaw on Saturday that the beneficiaries are each receiving 800,000 Iraqi dinars (nearly $610) per month.
Sarab added that a total of “2,481 Yazidi Kurdish women and girls have been granted salaries.”
She added that the payments are being issued in accordance with a law passed by the Iraqi parliament in 2021 to provide financial compensation and support to Yazidi women rescued from ISIS.
“These Yazidi Kurdish women and girls have been granted these salaries under Law No. 8, the Yazidi Female Survivors Law,” Ilias stated, noting that only a limited number of eligible survivors are still awaiting completion of their procedures.
According to Ilias, the ministry has taken steps to ensure that survivors living abroad are not excluded from the process.
“Some survivors residing abroad, such as in Germany and Sweden, are being interviewed online to facilitate the allocation of their salaries,” she said.
Regardless of their current place of residence, any Yazidi woman or girl who survived ISIS abduction is eligible to submit an application under the law.
For the first time, on December 12, 2024, Iraqi authorities conducted video conference interviews from Nineveh province with Yazidi women and girls living abroad, marking a significant step toward implementing the law for the diaspora.
ISIS launched its assault on the Yazidi community during its attack on Sinjar (Shingal) in August 2014, after seizing large areas of northern and western Iraq earlier that year.
The extremist group carried out what the United Nations has recognized as a genocide, killing an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Yazidi men and older women and abducting between 6,000 and 7,000 women and girls.
According to the Office of Rescuing Abducted Yazidis, an affiliate of the Kurdistan Region Presidency, more than 3,590 survivors have since been rescued, while efforts continue to locate those still missing.
The office reports that extremists abducted over 6,400 Yazidi women and children during the assault, subjecting many to sexual slavery and abuse.
Several former ISIS fighters have been convicted in Germany on charges including genocide and crimes against humanity related to the persecution of the Yazidi community.
Despite progress in compensation and rescue efforts, thousands of Yazidi families continue to await information about missing relatives, more than a decade after the genocide.
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