Why Slavery: I was a Yazidi Slave

Storyline

S01E03 In August 2014, an Islamic State massacre of unimaginable proportions took place during the rapid invasion of the Yazidi people in Sinjar, northern Iraq. Young Yazidi women were separated from the old and taken to the Galaxy Cinema in Mosul. There they were paraded, selected, enslaved, tortured and systematically raped. Some were only 11 years old. This film tells the story of Shirin and Lewiza, two Yazidi women captured by IS, who escape to Germany thanks to the intervention of Dr Jan Kizilhan, a world-acknowledged expert on trauma. In all, he brought one thousand women and girls - all victims of IS sexual violence - from the refugee camps in Iraq to his clinic in the Black Forest for treatment. We follow the Yazidi women’s journey to recovery and ask how a survivor of unthinkable sexual violence can find justice and a path to rehabilitation. This is their story.

Airing
Friday
07
November
2025
1:02 am