The Genocide Convention is an international treaty approved in 1948 with the intent to prevent genocides in the future. It defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/the-yazidi-genocide-lack-of-justice-and-gender-based-violence-in-genocides

The Genocide Convention, which was enacted in 1948, has not been updated in order to take developments in warfare or society into account.

Human rights have historically not applied to women. As Sondra Hale ( Hale, Sondra, “Rape as a Marker and Eraser of Difference: Darfur and the Nuba Mountains.” in Laura Sjoberg and Sandra Via eds. Gender, War, and Militarism, Feminist Perspectives, (Praeger Security International Ser., 2010), p.109) rightly points out, the eternal paradox regarding women in warfare is that violence against women is normalised yet women are highly visible as victims.

Furthermore, as Catharine Mackinnon (see MacKinnon, Catharine A., “Rape, Genocide, and Women’s Human Rights,” Harvard Women’s Law Journal 17 (1994), p.6) points out, crimes committed against women and crimes committed against human beings have historically been seen as separate or even mutually exclusive, which is crucial in this context.

The patriarchal religion of Yazidis placed women in a targeted situation. It is known that their men reject them from their community if they have been captured and subjected to rape. Gender Based Violence is a common weapon of war, and was used by ISIS or Daeth to eradicate the Yazidis.

The article in https://www.kcl.ac.uk/the-yazidi-genocide-lack-of-justice-and-gender-based-violence-in-genocides

By

Camilla Østergaard Kristensen

09 August 2021

Quotes a Yazidi woman:

“Despite our suffering, nobody cares about us. We have shared our stories but even then, they have not done anything for us.”

And still the battle goes on today, with Human Rights Lawyer, Amai Clooney working with Yazidi women survivors to sue French Lafarge Cement Company for its part in funding ISIS during their murderous campaign in Northern Iraq.

They have already been in court once:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63305371

Still have not been held accountable for their relationship with ISIS which led to GBV against the Yazidis.

That corporates have historically funded genocidal acts is nothing new. That GBV has still not been listed as a genocidal intent in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is a crime in itself.