In August 2014 ISIS took control of Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan and abducted and enslaved over 6,000 Yazidi women and children. Nearly 2,800 Yazidi women and children remain in captivity.

In 2017, to mark the third Anniversary, Hannah Rose Thomas and clinical psychologist Dr. Sarah Whittaker-Howe facilitated a trauma-healing art workshop with Yazidi women who had escaped ISIS captivity. The project took place in the Jinda (Kurdish for new life) Rehabilitation Centre in Dohuk. The aim was to use art as a powerful tool for advocacy.

During the art project Hannah taught the women how to paint their self-portraits as a way to share their stories with the rest of the world. Many of the women chose to paint themselves with glistening tears of gold. One young mother painted a haunting image of an ISIS soldier separating her from her six-year-old daughter.

The paintings convey their dignity, resilience and unspeakable grief.