It was the first time the Yezidi women had ever drawn or painted in their lives before.
The aim of perpetrators like ISIS is to dehumanize and is about psychologically oppressing and silencing their victims. Art is a simple and yet powerful tool to counteract the conspiracy of silence that often prevails within communities of mass trauma.
One young mother Basse painted an image of ISIS separating her from her six-year-old daughter: They took her hands out of my hands, and put her into the hands of the enemy…. every day and night I imagine what Daesh are doing to her’ she said. Basse escaped but her daughter did not.
Listening to Basse share her story
These paintings convey their dignity, resilience and unspeakable grief.
The other women painted portraits of themselves in Yezidi traditional dress of white robes. This expression of their sense of identity is important considering the dehumanizing treatment they have experienced in the hands of ISIS.
Ounswa was 10 years old when she was taken with her father and mother and forced to live under the occupation of Daesh.
One woman Leila said, ‘They took my 9 and 11 year old sons: They took my 10 year old daughter: They took my husband. I don’t know if they are dead, or alive. I pray to God that I before I die I will see and hold them again.’ The greatest trauma for the Yezidi people is the ongoing anguish of loss and separation.
Thompson Reuters Foundation Trust Conference
The paintings by Yezidi women were exhibited at the Thompson Reuters Foundation Trust Conference in London November 2017.