Submission to the Senate Standing Committees on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade on the Issues facing diaspora communities in by the Yazidi Australian Association

Yazidi Australian Association welcomes the opportunity to provide a Submission to the Senate Standing Committees on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade on the Issues facing diaspora communities in Australia. Yazidi Australian Association represents the needs and issues of the newly arrived Yazidi community members in Australia.

We are one of the most recently arrived small and emerging refugee communities in Australia. Majority of our community members have settled in rural and regional Australia including Coffs Harbour, Wagga Wagga, Armidale and Toowoomba with a smaller cohort settling in Western Sydney. Below is a brief outline of the faced by Yazidi community members. Further cultural information can be provided upon request.

The Yazidi (or Ezidi) are a people who originate from , and Turkey. The population is estimated to be between 800, 000 and 1000, 0001 globally, although their population is difficult to estimate considering their dwindling numbers over the last century due to constant persecution. The are located primarily in the Nineveh province of northern Iraq, and in the Al-Jazira and Kurd- Dagh areas of Syria. The sacred valley of is the centre of pilgrimage for Yazidis. Some also live in Armenia and Georgia and many have migrated to parts of Europe. Sweden has had a significant Yazidi population since 20082 and Germany since the 1970s3 Yazidis almost all speak Kurmanji, with the exception of some villages in northern Iraq where is spoken. Kurmanji is the language of almost all the orally transmitted religious traditions of the Yazidis4.

Yazidis began to face persecution from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Organised anti-Yazidi violence dates back to the . In the second half of the 19th century, Yazidis were targeted by both Ottoman and local Kurdish leaders and subjected to brutal campaigns of religious violence5.

In the late 1970s, launched brutal Arabisation campaigns against people in the north of Iraq. He razed traditional Yazidi villages and forced the Yazidis to settle in urban centres, disrupting

1 Kizilhan, J. & Noll-Hussong, M. (2017). Individual, collective and transgenerational traumatization in the Yazidi. Retrieved from: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-017-0965-7 2 Asatryan, G. & Arakalova, V. (2002). The Ethnic Minorities of Armenia. Retrieved from: http://www.minorities-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/The-ethnic-minorities-of-Armenia.pdf

3 Allison, C. (2017). The Yazidis. Retrieved from: http://religion.oxfordre.com/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199340378.001.0001$002facref ore-9780199340378-e-254;jsessionid=259EAC77572CAA3907EC9130493559DC 4 Asatryan, G. & Arakalova, V. (2002). The Ethnic Minorities of Armenia. Retrieved from: http://www.minorities-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/The-ethnic-minorities-of-Armenia.pdf 5 Asher-Schapiro, A. (2014). Who are the Yazidis, the Ancient, Persecuted Religious Minority Struggling to Survive in Iraq? National Geographic. Retrieved from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140809-iraq-yazidis-minority-isil-religion-history/

1 | Page their rural way of life. Saddam Hussein constructed the town of and forced the Yazidis to abandon their mountain villages and relocate in the city.

In 2014 Islamic State captured large areas of Iraq’s north. In August 2014 they seized the city of Sinjar. In the next few days ISIS militants carried out the , killing more than 2000 Yazidi men and taking Yazidi women and girls into slavery, leading to a mass exodus of Yazidi residents, 250,000 of whom fled to the and were forced to choose between surrendering to ISIS forces or dying of dehydration, thirst and starvation on the mountain. The majority were able to be rescued by both Kurdish PKK fighters who broke the ISIS siege on the mountains and by a multinational rescue operation in which planes dropped supplies and helicopters evacuated refugees6.

The persecution of the Yazidi people has been viewed as qualifying as by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in a March 2015 report7. Cited were numerous atrocities such as forced religious conversion and sexual slavery as being part of an overall malicious campaign. In March 2016, the House of Representatives voted unanimously that violent actions performed against Yazidis, Christians, Shia and other groups by ISIL were acts of genocide and was confirmed a few days later by United States Secretary of State John Kerry, who declared that the violence initiated by ISIL against the Yazidis and others amounted to genocide.

The Human Rights Council8 describes the Yazidi community of Sinjar as having been devastated by ISIS attacks, with no free Yazidis remaining in the Sinjar region. The once 400,000-strong community have all been displaced, captured or killed. While Yazidis are gradually returning to the retaken areas of Sinjar north of the mountain, the majority of the region’s Yazidis live difficult and impoverished existences in IDP camps scattered throughout the region of northern Iraq.

The on-going ISIS attacks against the Yazidis were viewed by the community not as a stand-alone event but part of a long history of oppression and violence against them which has aggravated intergenerational trauma. According to the Human Rights Council, few Yazidis believed that international criminal justice was possible, citing centuries of impunity to attacks on their community9

Currently, there is another genocide of the Yazidis going on and the attempt to displace them in Syria, especially in the regions and villages of Afrin where a destructive campaign of harassment, kidnapping, rape and killing began in 2018 and continued till the present day. Some of Afrin Yazidis fled to Iraq, others to Lebanon and Turkey, but there is also persecution and deprivation of all their rights there as well. Within another year, according to studies and the threats that the Yazidi community keeps

6 Reuter, C. (2014). The drama of Sinjar: escaping the Islamic State in Iraq. Speigel Online. Retrieved from: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pkk-assistance-for-yazidis-escaping-the-jihadists-of-the-islamic- state-a-986648.html 7 Human Rights Council. (2016). “They Came to Destroy”: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis.” Retrieved from: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A_HRC_32_CRP.2_en.pdf 8 Ibid. 9 Asher-Schapiro, A. (2014). Who are the Yazidis, the Ancient, Persecuted Religious Minority Struggling to Survive in Iraq?. National Geographic. Retrieved from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140809-iraq-yazidis-minority-isil-religion-history/

2 | Page receiving in Afrin, they will end up murdered, deported, and the Yazidi civilization will be lost in all the regions of Syria101112

AHMAD IESSO

President of the

YAZIDI AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION

w. www.yazidi.org.au

Question 1

10 Ochab, A.U. (2020) Will The Yazidis Survive In The Middle East?, Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2020/06/01/will-the-yazidis-survive-in-the-middle- east/#105e6e904d23 11 Cockburn, P. (2018), Yazidis who suffered under Isis face forced conversion to Islam amid fresh persecution in Afrin, Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-yazidis-isis-islam- conversion-afrin-persecution-kurdish-a8310696.html 12 Ahmado, N. (2019), Hundreds of Yazidis Displaced Amid Turkey's Incursion in Northeast Syria, VOA News, https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/hundreds-yazidis-displaced-amid-turkeys-incursion-northeast- syria

3 | Page What do you think about the support offered to our community associations and similar organisations, including government grants and other funding? Did the organisations in Yazidi community receive enough support? Were the right things supported? If Yazidi community did not receive enough support and if the right projects were not supported, what should be supported?

Yazidi Community is very new to Australia. The first organisation has just been incorporated and we have only received funding through our auspice arrangement with the NSW service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS). Our community members have received essential support from settlement agencies, torture and trauma services, education providers and others. We are grateful for the support we have received so far as individuals. Of course, there could be improvements but we feel that overall we were well supported on arrival.

However, for our community to fully integrate in Australia, we will require a different type of support and on the community level including:

- Access to funding that we can manage independently coupled with mentoring and guidance by the dedicated Government staff or an appropriate non-Government Agency. While we appreciate services being delivered to our community members, we feel that we need to develop independence and build on our community’s strengths and assets. This funding can be small at the start but we are willing to learn and grow.

- Direct access to relevant Australian politicians and other Government officials to ensure we can raise issues faced by our community first hand rather than being represented by non-Yazidi service providers. We feel that this opportunity to exercise our democratic rights as Australian Citizens and residents, will go a long way towards supporting our healing and resettlement process.

- Australian systems and processes are complex. Our community needs a bridge between ordinary community members and those systems and processes. Organisations such as ours can play this role as do many other refugee community organisations that have settled before us. We have learned a lot from working with the Assyrian Australian Association and STARTTS.

- Specific projects that need funding and support in our community include activities/projects for children; activities/projects for women and support with small business development through access to training and mentoring.

- Assistance with obtaining a property for our community as well as a place of worship and cemetery. In order for our community to settle and feel truly at home, they need to know where their final resting place will be.

- Training and support for new interpreters and Translators – number and quality of Kurmanji interpreters is insufficient and this can be attested to by various service providers particularly in specialised settings such as health and legal. Australian Government and TIS should make a concerted effort to recruit and train Kurmanji interpreters.

- Access to free registered Migration Agents particularly in rural and regional Australia. One of the most significant concerns for our community is family reunion. Migration advice is costly and difficult to obtain particularly outside of Metropolitan areas.

Question 2

What safety concerns does Yazidi community have? How can Australian Government strengthen the protection and resilience of vulnerable groups in Yazidi community? Which groups are most vulnerable?

4 | Page Our community feels very safe in Australia, however there are three issues we face and are concerned about:

- Our community members have suffered extreme trauma which is well documented. This includes frequent instances of sexual slavery women and children were exposed to, as well as children being recruited as child soldiers and forced conversions. While we feel physically safe, many of us still lack the basic sense of psychological safety. The transformation of trauma is a long-term process and Australian Government needs to ensure sufficient funding to torture and trauma services as well as making all relevant health and settlement services trauma-informed. This could be achieved via contractual requirements of funded service providers. They may need to be asked to provide evidence that their services are culturally safe and trauma informed.

- Majority of our community members have family and friends overseas who remain enslaved. We are concerned for their safety and we are often requested huge sums of money to secure their release. This is a significant concern for us.13

- There have been threats made against Yazidis in Australia and their families overseas. We need direct contact with Australian Federal Police and prompt response to any of our concerns reported. We are also concerned about potential human rights abusers from Iraq and Syria obtaining Australian visas and settling in Australia. We are aware that Australian Government will be considering Magnitsky- style legislation that could result in sanctions against such individuals and their families. We are supportive of this legislation and we would like civil society to have a clear pathway to request sanctions against individuals or their families.

- The whole of Yazidi culture is under threat of extinction particularly in Iraq and Syria. The only way to maintain this ancient culture is through cultural maintenance initiatives in diaspora communities. We are at a critical point where we need all the support we can get to maintain and preserve our unique culture and faith. We need to ensure our intangible heritage is not lost despite many losses of our tangible heritage and human lives.141516

We feel that the most vulnerable groups in our community include women and children particularly those who have suffered extreme trauma and those suffering from physical or psychiatric disabilities.

Question 3

What prevents the full participation of Yazidi community in Australia’s democratic and social institutions and what can be done to make sure Yazidi community can participate fully?

There are multiple barriers to our full participation including:

- Lack of resources for Yazidi community projects and initiatives – this includes financial resources and access to meeting places.

13 Shehadi, L. (2020), Thousands of Yazidis still missing six years after initial ISIS attack, Al-Arabiya English, https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2020/08/12/Thousands-of-Yazidis-still-missing-six-years-after-initial- ISIS-attack 14 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1469605319884137 15 https://web-release.com/yazidis-continue-to-face-unknown-future-with-cultural-heritage-under- unprecedented-threat/ 16 Suliman, A. (2019) 'You can't protect people without protecting their heritage ... the two are completely indivisibly linked', Thomson Foundation News, https://news.trust.org/item/20190907172652-jrja4/

5 | Page - Lack of knowledge of Australian democratic and social institutions and pathways for engagement. We are a new community and this will occur over time. However, we would like a more proactive Government approach to civics education for our community.

- Lack of channels to engage directly with Australian democratic and social institutions. Our issues are often represented by service providers working with our community. Yazidi community needs to be at the table where decisions are made about services and initiatives, settlement locations and other issues relevant to our community. Australian Government needs to be proactive in seeking and supporting our direct participation.

- Unemployment – being new to Australia, we understand that employment outcomes will take some time to achieve. However, we do not see the current JobActive services working for us and anecdotal evidence suggests that Yazidi unemployment is high. We need targeted employment services and assistance with small business development.

- English language – while we have access to AMEP, we feel that the hours allocated are insufficient to obtain command of English necessary for full social and economic participation in Australian society. Levels of trauma in our community are high and this impacts on many community members’ ability to learn and retain a new language. We believe that access to English tuition should not be determined by set hours but by the level of English language achieved.

Question 4

How can communication and partnership be improved between government and Yazidi community?

Australian Government needs to be proactive and genuine in its engagement with our community. This means:

- Dedicated channels our community leaders can approach when they need to make suggestions or raise issues.

- Regular meetings between relevant Government officials and our community members. These should be conducted in Kurmanji and with well-trained interpreters.

- Facilitating access to input in decision making processes relevant to our community on all levels of Government. We need to be invited to sit at this table and encouraged to participate and contribute.

- Training and support for our community in relation to systems advocacy and civics education.

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