Most people would agree that a child, a three/four year old, shouldn't be blamed for what their
parents decided to do.
They also don't have access to health care.
They don't have access to welfare.
The idea that a family should be tainted by association is so
fundamentally unfair, and that if we allow for that kind of thinking,
then where does that end?
My job with Human Rights Watch in Iraq is to go into the field.
So when we write about abuses, we have that direct, firsthand testimony.
In a country like Iraq, as you can imagine, there are hundreds, if not
thousands, of human rights issues.
If I work on this issue right now, is there a chance that we can bring about change?
Is there a chance that we can stop the abuses from happening?
I'm entering a camp south of Mosul that's holding hundreds of families.
Some of these families are accused of having links to ISIS.
They're accused of this because they have fathers or brothers or sons who are said to
have joined the group.
In many ways camps like this represent a mass exercise
of collective punishment against these families.
This is illegal under international law, and this could represent a war crime.
These families lost their documents when they were fleeing fighting.
Sometimes ISIS took their documents, sometimes Iraqi security forces took their documents,
and they ended up with absolutely nothing proving their identity.
Now as they try to get their documents back, when they go to governmental offices they're
told, "Your father was ISIS, you are ISIS.
You do not deserve your documents.
We will not give them to you."
Because of the missing documentation they're really completely cut off from society.
They're further and further marginalized.
And that in and of itself I think is doing real damage to the fabric of Iraqi society,
in the context that these women of course have have children and are raising children
in a growing atmosphere of anger and resentment for the fact that they're being punished not
for anything they did but what their
loved ones, their husbands, their sons might have done.
She has two sons who she said joined ISIS and later died.
Now she is raising
her son's children and other children that were left in her care.
Right now she has nine children she's taking care of, and she's taking care of them all
alone in this camp.
The minute that I leave that tent, and I'm leaving this person to their thoughts having
just dredged up old and painful memories, is something
that causes me a lot of concern.
There are many very difficult stories that I've heard and had to process.
The upbringing that I had really helped me to deal with some of the stuff that I see
in my work.
I had the benefit of growing up in Switzerland, a very safe country, a country where I had
access to education and a very stable environment.
Coming out of that, what I felt very acutely, and I already felt this since my early teens,
was that because
I was given all of that, I really do have an obligation to use what was given to me
to help those who don't have the same opportunities.
I do really worry about the kids in these families, in particular, and the extent to
which that they're going to become radicalized.
ISIS, which continues to be a concern in Iraq and isn't gone, is going to take that opportunity
to target these children and to recruit them.
I really fear that you're just going to see the next wave in Iraq of radicalization.
I think most sensible people would agree that keeping that child out of school is not only
unfair, but it's actually dangerous to the country.
It's dangerous to have thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of kids kicked
out of the education system
prevented from getting things like access to health care, access to welfare, that is
going to damage the fabric of Iraqi society.
What we want is for these families to be able to go home, for their kids to grow up at home.
But at least this would be, in a limited way, a certain measure of success
that these kids would be in school.
I say to families, the problems that you're facing right now I can't fix them.
All I can do is promise that I will share with the world the words that you gave me.
The work that we do can fundamentally bring about change.
We are able to use stories that people give us, give them a platform, an ability to speak
very directly to a global community.
That ultimately is what brings about change.