ISIS torturing, raping children from minority groups in Iraq
A UN report urges governments to respond to ISIS atrocities against children in Iraq
GENEVA-The United Nations released a report Feb. 4 that says Islamic State group ISIS, which controls areas in Syria and Iraq, is systematically killing, torturing and raping children and families in Iraq, and the report calls on governments to respond.
From The National Post, “In a report issued Wednesday in Geneva, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said it has received reports of “several cases of mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive.””
ISIS targets children of minority groups, abducting and forcing them to act as suicide bombers or sex slaves.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein spoke at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C Feb. 5, warning world leaders against “sinking into a state of paralysis” and urged for moral courage to treat each other humanely.
Forceful reprisals, Zeid says, against atrocities are not working.
“Just bombing them or choking off their financing has clearly not worked…for these groups have only proliferated and grown in strength,” he says. “The space for dissent in many countries is collapsing under the weight of either poorly-thought out, or indeed, exploitative, counter-terrorism strategies.”
Instead, he says the world needs leaders who choose to fully observe humanitarian law, “without excuses.”
“Surely we now know, from bitter experience, that human rights are the only meaningful rampart against barbarity.”
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