Sexual Violence against Yazidi Women as Genocide with Emphasis on Rwandan International Court's Judgment in Akayesu Case

The Rome Statute and the Convention on the Prohibition of Genocide did not specify sexual violence as the material element of genocide before the trials of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda; the International Criminal Court for Sexual Violence did not constitute an integral part of genocide. Analysis of the true nature of sexual violence shows that this behavior can form the material element of genocide. In 2014, ISIS forces seized the Iraqi city of Sinjar, seized about 6,000 Yazidi women, raped some, took some of them to the slave market in Syria and Iraq, and traded them as sex slaves. In 2016, the UN Commission on Research announced that ISIS committed genocide against the Yazidi minority, subsequently in 2017 issued resolution 2379, which provided the preparation for investigations into ISIS's crimes. The present study, after examining the interviews of Yazidi women conducted by the United Nations, researchers and the media and taking into account the facts of the subject and the comparison of the former jurisdiction and international law, concluded that ISIL had committed genocide from the conduit of sexual violence against the Yazidi minority, and that the International Criminal Court could prosecute the crime based on its own competence or the reference to the Security Council.