The INSIDER Summary:
- Amal Clooney is a human rights lawyer with international acclaim.
- She's also married to actor George Clooney.
- Right now, she's waging a fight against ISIS.
- She says the group has been committing genocide against Yazidi women in Iraq.
- She is urging the United Nations to start an investigation — and fast.
Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney is currently expecting twins with her husband, actor George Clooney.
But parenthood isn't the only thing on her mind.
Since last June, Clooney has also been working on a formidable professional task: Winning justice for the victims of a genocide perpetrated by ISIS in Iraq. Here's a more detailed look at the work she's been doing.
The Yazidi people are being persecuted by ISIS because of their religion.
The Yazidis are a religious minority living in Iraq. Their religion borrows elements from Islam, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian faith. Because of their unique beliefs, the Yazidis have long been branded as heretics and devil-worshippers by other Muslims.
Since 2014, ISIS has been waging a genocide against the Yazidis by enslaving, raping, and killing thousands of members of the religion.
Yazidi women are being sold into slavery.
"We know that thousands of Yazidi civilians have been killed and that thousands of Yazidi women have been enslaved,"Clooney said in a statement last June. "We know that systematic rapes have taken place, and that they are still taking place," Clooney said. "And yet no one is being held to account."
Clooney took the case after hearing a survivor's harrowing story.
In June 2016, the law firm where Clooney works announced that she will be defending the Yazidi women and attempting to prosecute ISIS. NBC News reported that Clooney was persuaded to tackle this issue after hearing the story of Nadia Murad. Murad was captured and enslaved by ISIS fighters in 2014, when she was just 21 years old.
Murad experienced daily sexual and physical violence during her captivity. After three months, she was able to escape and immigrate to Germany. Since then, she's been recounting her story to global leaders, urging them to take action.
Now, Clooney wants to put ISIS on trial.
Clooney wants ISIS to be tried in International Criminal Court (ICC), a court set up in 2002 to prosecute crimes against humanity.
There's one problem: Iraq and Syria — the countries where ISIS holds territory — aren't members of the ICC. The court says that it can't intervene until Iraq invites it to, or until the United Nations Security Council orders its own investigation, according to NBC News.
Clooney and Murad have been attempting to convince the UN and the Iraqi government to do just that. They visited the UN headquarters in March 2017 and Clooney gave this powerful speech:
Clooney says we need to start collecting evidence now.
In order to bring ISIS to court, evidence needs to be collected. And it exists: So far about 50 mass Yazidi graves have been discovered, and thousands of Yazidi refugees have fled Iraq and could testify in a case against ISIS, according to the Guardian.
"All of this evidence is going to be lost if it's not collected soon,"Clooney said in a recent conference addressing the issue. "Mass graves are being contaminated as relatives dig for remains of their loved ones. Documents are not being gathered. Witnesses are being dispersed around the world. They are increasingly reluctant to to speak about these cases."
But Clooney has vowed that she won't stop fighting to hold ISIS accountable.
"Victims have all said they actually want their day in court,"Clooney told NBC News last fall. "It's not going to be easy, but we're working on multiple fronts."
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