International Development Committee House of Commons, London, SW1 A OAA Tel: 020 7219 1223 Email : [email protected] Website: www.garliament.uk/indcom

From Stephen Twigg MP, Chair

Rt Hon Amber Rudd MP Secretary of State Home Office

16 November 2016

Dear Amber,

Access to the UK's resettlement programme for Iraqi minorities

Thank you for your letter of 9 November on the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the UK and the challenges facing NGOs working in Syria in terms of finance and access. I am writing to you now concerning the large number of minority refugees, in particula~ from the Yazidi and Christian communities, who have fled the conflict in Mosul and in Iraq more widely and are unable to access the UK's resettlement programme for refugees.

Iraq's ethnic and religious minori ties have been targeted by Daesh and have been living under a deadly campaign since 2014. Many thousands have been murdered, maimed, raped or abducted, with large numbers of women and girls forced into marriage or sexual enslavement. This has left many minority communities on the verge of disappearance in Iraq. For example, the Christian population, which before 2003 numbered as many as 1.4 million, had fallen to 350,000 by early 2014, and since the Daesh advance is now estimated as under 250,000. 1 Minority women and children face double discrimination. Women have suffered sexual violence as a punishment measure and also as a reward to Daesh fighters: they have been exchanged by fighters as gifts, forced into marriage with the purpose of rape and repeatedly raped by Daesh fighters for enjoyment. Minority children have been targeted by Daesh for killing, sexual violence and recruitment. 2

The House has heard during debates of a Yazidi community in Sinjar province in Iraq where every girl over eight was imprisoned and raped, some so young their bodies could not bear the sexual violence and they died. And of a two-year-old boy who was killed and of his body parts ground down and fed to his own mother.3

When, in June 2016, 19 Yazidi women were publicly burned to death by Daesh in Mosul, the Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Baroness Anelay, contended that the only way to stop Daesh was to liberate all the people currently under its control.4 However,

1 Minority Rights Group International, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Institute for International Law and Human Rights, and No Peace without Justice, No Way Home: Iraq's minorities on the verge of disappearance, July 2016, p5 221bid, pp 12 and 15 3 HC Deb 20 April 2016 v608 cols 957-8 [Daesh: Genocide of Minorities] 4 HL Deb 14 June 2016 v773 col 1103 [Iraq: Isis] since the military action to liberate Mosul began, Iraqi minority communities have been left particularly vulnerable and there has been a worrying gap in UK support for them through the UK's resettlement schemes.

I recognise that in practice religion-based asylum applications present complex and challenging cases to assess. The APPG for International Freedom of Religion and Belief commended the Home Office for its guidance on religion-based asylum claims but was concerned by the clear gap between policy and practice. 5 This gap is particularly troubling and, although the Minister for Immigration assured the House in July that the Home Office were making improvements in response to the APPG's recommendations,6 the current military situation in Mosul has increased the urgency of this matter. For example, the UN has reported that Daesh holds 1,935 Yazidi women and 1,864 Yazidi men, of whom at least 300 Yazidi women remain inside Mosul. 7 Large numbers have fled to camps in Turkey, and Germany has relocated 1,000 highly vulnerable Iraqi women and children to the state of · Baden-Wurttemberg through its humanitarian admission programme.8 I understand that fleeing Yazidis and other minorities are ineligible for the UK resettlement programme because they have Iraqi, rather than Syrian, nationality status.

Given the current military action in Mosul, I ask that you urgently review the support the UK provides to Iraqi minorities .and , the barriers to their access to the UK's resettlement programme. There is a clear case for humanitarian pathways for admission, such as a medical evacuation scheme, for Iraqi minorities who have been subjected to such appalling atrocities, which have been described by my colleague on the International Development Committee Fiona Bruce as "so unspeakable that their evil seems almost fictional. But it is not. " 9

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Twigg MP Chair of the Committee

Copied to: Rt Hon Priti Patel MP, Secretary of State for International Development

5 All-Party Parliamentary Group on for International Freedom of Religion and Belief, Fleeing Persecution: Asylum Claims in the UK on Religious Freedom Grounds, pp 34-5 6 HC Deb 19 July 2016 v613 col 289WH [Persecution of religious minorities: Middle East] 7 'What will happen to the Yazidi sex slaves in Mosul?', New Statesman, 31 October 2016 8 Minority Rights Group International, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Institute for International Law and Human Rights, and No Peace without Justice, No Way Home: Iraq's minorities on the verge of disappearance, July 2016, p29 9 HC Deb 20 April 2016 v608 cols 959 [Daesh: Genocide of Minorities]