Daughters of the Sun
Harrowing but also hopeful documentary about young Yezidi women who were conscripted as sex slaves by IS fighters and are now trying to pick up their lives again.
In 2014, the Islamic State attacked the province of Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan. A place mostly inhabited by Yezidi, a religious community. Many elderly men and women were executed. Young women were brutally separated from their families, forcibly converted to Islam and conscripted as sex slaves of IS fighters. Since the liberation of Sinjar in 2016 by Kurdish forces, many have returned to refugee camps around Duhok. The question is whether the women can start a new life.
Dutch-Kurdish filmmaker Reber Dosky (RADIO KOBANI, SIDIK AND THE PANTHER) travelled to the centre of the Yezidi community to capture their stories. The young women receive help from theatre-maker Hussein, who cares about their plight and helps them on their way. He also acts as a mediator in the liberation of women still held as slaves by IS fighters who fled to Turkey.