In a courtroom in Munich, Nora sat across from the person who had bought her as a slave, abused her and murdered her five-year old daughter.
Nora and Reda were being held captive in Iraq by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in 2015, the year after IS began what the UN says was a genocidal campaign against the Yazidi religious minority.
They were “bought” as slaves by IS husband and wife Taha al-Jumailly and Jennifer Wenisch who had travelled to Fallujah from Germany.
In late July, five-year-old Reda got sick and wet the bed.
To punish her, Al-Jumailly took the little girl outside and chained her to a window in 50C degree heat. He and his wife left the child to die of dehydration while her mother, locked up inside, could only watch.
Wenisch became one of the first members of IS to be tried and convicted of a war crime, in 2021. A month later, Al-Jumailly was convicted of genocide.
Nora’s testimony was instrumental in securing their convictions.
“This is possible, it’s been done,” says Nobel Peace Prize-winner Nadia Murad, a Yazidi activist who is from the same village as Nora and has spent the past 10 years campaigning for this kind of justice.
“What people don’t know about [IS] and like-minded groups is that they don’t care about being killed. But they are so scared of facing women and girls in court,” she says.
“And they will always come back with a different name if we don’t hold them accountable in front of the whole world.”
