Why We Speak: Help Spread Refugee Stories

In August, we hosted a livestream on the anniversary of the beginning of the Yazidi genocide in Iraq by ISIS. 3 Generations had recorded the stories from some of the survivors of this genocide and wanted to take a deeper dive into this under reported tragedy. 

In 2014, in the Northern Iraq town of Sinjar over 6,000 Yazidi women and children were kidnapped by members of the terrorist organization ISIS. Many older women, men and boys were killed on the spot. Younger women and children were processed and taken across the border to ISIS controlled sites, including slave markets, and training and indoctrination centers. Today over 3,000 women and girls are still missing.  

In observance of the anniversary our Founder Jane Wells spoke with Debbie Rose, Founder of the charity Project Abraham in Canada, and Souriya Naso a volunteer at Project Abraham. Project Abraham has helped several hundred Yazidi women and children who were victims of ISIS reach safety in Canada. Souriya is a Yazidi who was born in Syria but whose family migrated to Canada during the Iraq War. 

The discussion touched on the amount of trauma that the Yazidi refugees had experienced, the worst that Canadian experts had ever encountered. They also spoke about the lack of will at the UN to label what happened to the Yazidis a genocide and offer assistance to find the thousands of still missing Yazidi women and girls. 

For more in depth information about the livestream and the Yazidi Genocide please read our blog post Let's not forget the Yazidi Genocide. 

3 Generations will continue to document the stories of Yazidi refugees and shine a spotlight on the plight of the missing Yazidi women and girls. To learn more about this and any of our other issues please visit us at 3generations.org.

3 Generations has been recording the stories of refugees for more than 10 years. It is one of the issues that is at the core of our work. We recently have been working on some short videos about Yazidi women who escaped the genocide perpetrated against their people in Iraq.

In 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS) committed genocide against the Yazidi people in the Sinjar province in Iraq. Thousands of Yazidi women and girls were forced into sexual slavery by ISIS, and thousands of Yazidi men were killed. Five thousand Yazidi civilians were killed in total. The genocide led to the expulsion, flight and exile of the Yazidis from their ancestral lands in Iraq.

We have been honored to document the testimony of three Yazidi women who managed to escape and are now living in Canada. We recently finished creating the video of Basema. In the video the ISIS survivor tells a harrowing account of her and her son’s enslavement by ISIS. She shares a brave memory about a life saving moment between herself and her child. Despite all of her pain and suffering she was able to continue to fight for survival because of her love for him.

We invite you to watch the video and hear her story. 

To learn more about this and any of our other issues please visit us at 3generations.org.