Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney is set to provide legal representation for Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi woman who was kidnapped by ISIS and trafficked as a sex slave. The two women hope to bring the case to the Hague on behalf of the thousands of genocide victims killed by the terrorist group.
23-year-old Nadia was captured in 2014 and was subjected to extensive abuse by ISIS militants before eventually escaping. She is now a Goodwill Ambassador to the UN, and has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
In a speech to the United Nations on Friday, Amal gave a damning indictment of the international body’s failure to tackle the crimes committed by the terrorist group against the Yazidi community. In an eight-minute address, she described her shame at the UN’s inaction.
‘I wish I could say I’m proud to be here but I am not,’ she said. ‘I am ashamed as a supporter of the United Nations that states are failing to prevent or even punish genocide because they find that their own interests get in the way.’
‘I am ashamed as lawyer that there is no justice being done and barely a complaint being made about it. I am ashamed as a woman that girls like Nadia could have their bodies sold and used as battlefields.’
She noted that not a single member of ISIS has yet been brought to justice for the Yazidi genocide, and that ‘Nadia and others like her are not seeking revenge, they are seeking justice, the opportunity to face their abusers in an international court at The Hague.’
One of Iraq’s oldest religious minorities, the Yazidis have been targeted by ISIS as so-called ‘infidels.’
Speaking on the Today Show in the US, Amal explained that responding to the organisation through military action alone is ‘not enough.’
‘You can’t kill and idea that way,’ she told interviewer Cynthia McFadden. ‘I think one of the ways to take action is to expose their brutality and their corruption, and partly you can do that through trials.’
The lawyer revealed that she had discussed the potential dangers of taking on such a case with her husband, George Clooney, but after meeting with Nadia, she felt she had no choice but to take on the case. ‘This is something I discussed with my husband before I would take on something like this […] We are aware of some of the risks involved.’
‘[George] met Nadia too and I think he was moved for the same reasons. He understood, I mean, that this is my work.’
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