Where can we find hope in the news from Iraq and Syria? With 3,000 Yezidi girls still enslaved by Islamic militants, millions displaced from their homes,
\n\tand daily reports of more Christians being beheaded and crucified, the situation is clearly grim.\n\t<\/p>\n
Many girls in \u201cBazi\u2019s\u201d situation have committed suicide. She is one of the few who held on to hope and found a way to escape. Now she is using her voice to
\n\thelp awaken the world to the heinous atrocities being committed by the self-proclaimed Islamic State.<\/p>\n
\n\tBazi was barely 19 when the Islamic State surrounded her village. Her life has never been the same since.\n\t<\/p>\n
\nHer family huddled together in their home, hoping that America would defeat the terrorists before they could enter her town. She remembers thinking,\tAmerica defeated Saddam Hussein in a few hours; surely they will come to rescue us<\/em>. She waited to hear the sound of planes that never came.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tFor 12 days her Muslim neighbors promised to protect the Yezidis in her village. But as soon as they gave up all of their weapons, their Muslim neighbors \n\tBazi\u2019s family and the rest of the Yezidis in her village were ushered into a school building—like sheep being led to the slaughter. The militants separated \n\tOver the next few months Bazi and the other Yezidi women and children were relocated several times. Local Islamic militants starved them, and when they \n\tEvery day the militants would remind the Yezidis that they deserve to be treated this way because they are \u201cdirty infidels\u201d who worship the devil.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tEventually Bazi was sold for $40 to an Islamic militant who claimed to have been American. The militant told Bazi, \u201cI used to be an infidel like you, until \n\tAgain Bazi contemplated suicide, but she had her 3-year-old nephew with her and could not imagine what they would do to him if she were not there.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tFinally, after five attempts, she was able to escape, and found a Yezidi \u201ccoordinator\u201d who helped her return to Iraq with her nephew. But Bazi\u2019s village is \n\tIt is hard for her and the other Yezidis to imagine returning to their village. Even if they could, life would never be the same, with so many people \n\tBazi is not alone. Throughout Iraq thousands of Christians were also forced to abandon their homes as Islamic militants flooded into their villages. In \n\tAgain, Islamic militants were able to take over villages with the help of local Muslims who welcomed the Islamic State. Overnight the Nineveh plains, once \n\tAt first most Christians and Yezidis fled to the Kurdish region for safety, but many have since sought refuge in Western countries. With the Islamic State \n\tIf the same ideology that inspires the Islamic militants also permeates Iraqi society, how can Iraq\u2019s minority religious communities ever feel safe? And in \n\tI traveled to northern Iraq just after the Islamic State launched its genocidal attacks on Christians and Yezidis. Ever since my visit, Hardwired, a global \n\tDuring 2015, Hardwired launched a program to promote religious freedom in Iraq; because we know that without local leaders prepared to defend religious \n\tIn each city throughout the Kurdish region Hardwired brings together a select group of community leaders, including teachers, religious leaders, \n\tMost participants arrive at the training expecting four days of lectures, but what they experience is something very different.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tAt first the atmosphere is tense. For the first time in their life, participants are asked to share their personal experiences of discrimination for their \n\tFor many of the participants, like Mariam, religious discrimination is a daily reality. These issues are not just hypothetical discussions. Many of their \n\tBut this was the first time members of both the majority religious group and religious minorities came together to hear one another at a time when they all \n\tAs we began the training program, one of the participants, a prominent member of the local Muslim Brotherhood who had aided displaced minorities, believed \n\tComing together under the shadow of the Islamic State, community leaders became very aware of the importance of coming to each other\u2019s aid—it is often a \n\tWhile local leaders learned for the first time about the true meaning of religious freedom, they also discovered the importance of working together to \n\tBy the end of the training, the participant from the Muslim Brotherhood was actively defending other religions, noting: \u201cDiversity is born with us and it \n\tMariam expressed Hardwired\u2019s purpose well when, on the final day, she commented, \u201cThe journey of one thousand miles begins with one step.\u201d After spending \n\tAs we train more local leaders to counter the religious oppression of Islamic militants and others who support their intolerant ideology, minority \n\tThis is why, in late September 2015, Hardwired brought Bazi and our Iraqi-based partner, Khidher Domle, to the United States to spur our leaders to action.
\n\tturned on them and welcomed the Islamic State militants into Kocho. It was just the beginning of Bazi\u2019s worst nightmare.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tthe women, children, and elderly from the men. Men as young as 14 years old were taken away; moments later Bazi heard the gunshots. Only one of her
\n\tbrothers survived the massacre. But the nightmare grew worse.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tfinally received food, it was rice filled with pieces of glass that cut them as they ate. They were given water that had human feces in it, which made them
\n\till. Whenever a militant wanted to rape one of the girls, he would, and then pass her to someone else. There was no chance to run, because the food and
\n\twater made them sick and dizzy. Living under such brutality, Bazi often contemplated suicide.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tI found the right path.\u201d He shared that he is now \u201ca citizen of the Islamic State\u201d and is known as Emir Abu Abdullah Amriki (for \u201cAmerica\u201d). For 45 days
\n\tthe emir raped Bazi repeatedly before and after his prayers.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tstill held by the Islamic militants, and most of the men are still \u201cmissing.\u201d She is one of 2,000 girls who escaped the Islamic militants, but every day
\n\tshe thinks about the 3,000 women and children who remain enslaved under these brutal captors.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tmissing, dead, and traumatized. And how can they ever feel safe again, living alongside people who betrayed and enslaved them?\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tJuly 2014, just before the Islamic State overtook Yezidi villages near Mount Sinjar, Christians in northern Iraq were given 24 hours to convert to Islam
\n\tand pay the jizya (tax) or be killed. Christian homes were marked, their businesses looted, and their bank accounts pillaged. They left with nothing but
\n\ttheir lives.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\thome to a Christian community founded in the first century, was almost completely emptied of its Christian population.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tspreading like a cancer throughout Syria and Iraq, Christians and Yezidis, as well as other minority religious communities in the region, have no reason to
\n\tbelieve it cannot happen again.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tan environment so hostile to religious freedom, where you cannot trust your neighbor, do these religious communities have a future in Iraq? Is there
\n\tanything to give them hope?\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tmovement for religious freedom, has been committed to helping the victims of this tragedy seek justice and pursue religious freedom.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tfreedom, Iraq\u2019s Christian, Yezidi, and other small religious communities will never be safe from Islamic militants or others who share their contempt for
\n\treligious freedom.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tjournalists, and civil society advocates, for an intensive training program in religious freedom.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\treligious identity in Iraq. For most it is the first time they have heard that others have been mistreated because of their faith and religious identity by
\n\tanyone other than the Islamic State. \u201cThese discussions never happen outside these walls,\u201d said Mariam, a Christian woman who attended.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\trelatives, neighbors, and friends have been displaced or attacked by Islamic militants, and they potentially face the threat of \u201cconvert or be killed.\u201d \n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tnow face a common enemy in the Islamic State and have a new understanding of religious persecution.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tregardless that others should accept Sunni dominance—with shari\u2019a rule and a jizya in place. His views were a reminder of the reason people like Bazi and
\n\tMariam and their communities are still afraid to live in Iraq. But as other Muslims challenged his views, and as Christians and Yezidis shared their
\n\texperience under the Islamic State, which had imposed similar laws on them, he began to change his views.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tmatter of life and death—but they had never been able to discuss openly the intolerant ideologies that exist in Iraq and how those dangerous views might be
\n\tovercome.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tenshrine this right for all Iraqis, not just their own religious group. Rather than believing it is the responsibility of others to secure freedom for
\n\tthem, they understood that they must take action to ensure the religious freedom of all Iraqis. \u201cI have attended many trainings about such things, but
\n\tnothing like this, where I benefited,\u201d one participant said. \u201cWe learned how to ask for our rights.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tis something from God, so we have to accept each other and learn more about dealing with other religions.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tfour days discussing religious freedom with other participants in an open and honest way, she was encouraged and felt that this training represented that
\n\tfirst step. For once she had hope that there was a future for her and other Christians in Iraq. During another training a Muslim leader was so inspired by
\n\tthe program that he organized a group of women and replicated the training program with them so they would be able to stand up for their rights as well.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\treligious communities also need immediate help to bring freedom to those still enslaved by Islamic militants.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tProfessor Domle is an active member of the Yezidi community who has coordinated the rescue of dozens of Yezidi women and girls like Bazi from the Islamic
\n\tState. His eyes were opened to the rights of his people when Hardwired came to Iraq and provided training on the values of religious freedom.\n\t<\/p>\n