Rape as Genocide Crime in International Criminal Law - The Case of Yazidi Women in Iraq

The study aims to shed light on rape as genocide crime by ISIS in International criminal law while taking Yazidi women in Iraq as a case study. In this study, an attempt has been made to determine the impact of rape as genocide crime. The world has been watching collective horror due to brutal atrocities committed by ISIS. Central to this violence was gender-based and sexual violence, with explicit targeting of girls and women. Sex slavery, rape, torture and forced marriage were used by ISIS as a tool to humiliate indigenous people. In order to conduct this research, both secondary and primary sources such as case law of ad hoc International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) will be taken under consideration.  Furthermore, the study found out those constituent elements of crimes and genocide were used against humanity and war crimes as tools for conversion, recruitment, forced indoctrination, and the destruction of community cohesion. The research is being done to find out whether this mass rape comes under the term “genocide” or not. The first part of this research paper deals with assaults done by ISIS on Yazidi women; while the second part elaborates the natures of such acts. The study concludes with the notion that ISIS is involved in many war crimes such as the rape of Yazidi women as a tool to humiliate the community. While calling such heinous acts Jihad, they exterminate the Yazidis people by systematic and planned violence through gross sexual atrocities on a large scale.