June 2014
As news broke of ISIS' sweeping invasion of Iraq, MADRE leaped into action. We mobilized an emergency response to secure and sustain the network of underground women's shelters we run with our local partners.
"In a climate of rising sectarian violence, those championing secularism and human rights are particular targets. MADRE is activating a strategy to secure the safety of our partners at the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) and the women they serve." - MADRE Executive Director Yifat Susskind, June 2014
July 2014
In a video report in June, ISIS extremist militants paraded through Mosul, Iraq, one of the first cities to fall to their onslaught. The armed men were hanging off the back of trucks, as the crowd filmed them. One fighter leaned out a car window, wagging his finger. The footage provided a translation. The fighter had spotted a woman, and he was ordering her to cover up.
This is how an extremist agenda is imposed: on women's bodies.
MADRE Condemns US Airstrikes in Iraq
August 2014
The US launched airstrikes in Iraq, in an attempt to destroy artillery installments of ISIS. There is no military solution to political problems, and airstrikes threatened to escalate the violence further. MADRE called for the prioritization of humanitarian response to meet the needs of those most threatened by the crisis.
December 2014
Atrocities grab headlines. But behind these headlines are the stories of things that did not happen, of women who escaped the threat of rape and found refuge beyond ISIS' grasp. Despite the odds, grassroots women's rights activists in Iraq and Syria are risking their safety and their lives to do what others have dismissed as impossible: to prevent rape as a weapon of war. These are the glimmers of hope that must light our way.
"We should not consider immediate violations committed against marginalized and at-risk Iraqis including women and girls as isolated events. It is equally important to consider and respond to the context and underlying conditions that fuel women and girls’ vulnerability and undermine their capacity to survive and recover from the crisis." - MADRE Human Rights Advocacy Director Lisa Davis, in testimony submitted to the US Congress, December 2014.
January 2015
Women in Iraq and Syria are the targets of brutal oppression and sexual attacks perpetrated by ISIS. We organized a landmark event in Istanbul, Turkey to bring together Iraqi and Syrian women's rights advocates working to protect survivors and to document evidence of rape as a weapon of war.
What Will It Take to Stop ISIS Using Rape as a Weapon of War?
February 2015
“We want Noor’s community to see her not as a ruined, raped girl, but as a prisoner of war who was strong enough to survive weeks of torture and brave enough to escape.” - Yanar Mohammed, president of our partner organization, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq.
The urgent care we provide with our partners to survivors of ISIS brutality does more than save lives. We saw how it fundamentally shifts how communities respond to rape — and creates the possibility to prevent future violence.
March 2015
Under even the harshest circumstances of brutal occupation by ISIS fighters, Iraqi and Syrian women were organizing to save lives and demand their rights. To spotlight these women-led solutions, MADRE helped organize a symposium, a public meeting of locally-based Iraqi and Syrian women activists and international experts addressing the crisis of women’s human rights under ISIS.
"This is also what gives rape as a weapon of war its destructive power. Perpetrators know that it can traumatize, and even destroy a person, and that the impacts do not stop there. The trauma of rape reverberates through families and communities. When people ostracize, reject or, as is all-too-common, kill survivors because of the stigma attached to rape, it tears apart the ties that bind families and communities. Resilience resides in these bonds of support vital to people’s ability to sustain each other through armed conflict. Armed groups in war will eagerly use a weapon that attacks those bonds, rendering a community even more vulnerable to domination and control." - Yifat Susskind, MADRE Executive Director, in "Shelters Without Walls: Women Building Protective Infrastructures Against Rape" (April 2015)
Just days after Yanar addressed the UN Security Council, women's rights advocates gathered to discuss strategies to advance women's solutions for peace. In particular, we dove into a new report examining women's leadership in effective peace processes — and where women are shut out.
October 2015
We re-convened Syrian and Iraqi women activists to reflect on new developments, support one another and advance new concrete strategies to confront the violations they face. The women proposed actionable solutions to policymakers.
How to Talk Hope in Hard Times
November 2015
Attacks carried out by ISIS in places like Paris and Beirut triggered a backlash against refugees and a rush toward militarized responses. We created this resource to debunk myths and failed strategies, and turn to solutions rooted in peace and human rights.
March 2016
We brought grassroots women's solutions to an international gathering of policymakers and advocates for women's rights and peace.
March 2016
With our local partners, we opened the doors to a brand new rape crisis center in Dohuk, Kurdistan—the only one of its kind in the region. Now, 30 young women and girls, survivors of ISIS enslavement, receive lifesaving support, including medical care, food and shelter.
What's Next
April 2016
We're keeping our momentum rolling to protect the lives of women and girls and to push for rights with policymakers. In April, MADRE will travel to Iraq to meet with activists who shelter women escaping ISIS, who risk their own lives pushing into ISIS territory to find and rescue people at risk, and who create safe spaces in dangerous places to organize for rights.
We'll keep updating this page with new progress!
