A Century Apart: The Genocidal Enslavement of Armenian and Yazidi Women

Abstract

This chapter explores the enslavement of women as a genocidal strategy against Armenian and Yazidi communities during genocides a century apart. It outlines strategies targeted against women and girls within the context of enslavement, including sexual violence and trafficking, forced marriage and pregnancy, and forced conversion and assimilation. It also highlights ideological factors underpinning these gendered and strategic tactics, designed to destroy the group’s biological, cultural and social infrastructure. Genocidal enslavement of women deprives them not only of physical freedom, but equally of their culture, identity and community, potentially leading to social death. This chapter shows that the gendered nature of the Yazidi genocide follows a similar trajectory to the Armenian Genocide and explores how an awareness of their parallels may be useful for intervention.