00:00Most people would agree that a child, a 3 or 4 year old,
00:03shouldn't be blamed for what their parents decided to do.
00:13They also don't have access to health care.
00:15They don't have access to welfare.
00:25The idea that a family should be tainted by association
00:29is so fundamentally unfair,
00:32and that if we allow for that kind of thinking,
00:35then where does that end?
00:44My job with Human Rights Watch in Iraq
00:46is to go into the field so when we write about abuses
00:49we have that direct first-hand testimony.
00:57In a country like Iraq, as you can imagine,
00:59there are hundreds if not thousands of human rights issues.
01:02If I work on this issue right now,
01:05is there a chance that we can bring about change?
01:07Is there a chance that we can stop the abuses from happening?
01:30I'm entering a camp south of Mosul that's holding hundreds of families.
01:35Some of these families are accused of having links to ISIS.
01:39They're accused of this because they have fathers or brothers or sons
01:44who are said to have joined the group.
01:46In many ways, camps like this represent a mass exercise
01:50of collective punishment against these families.
01:54This is illegal under international law,
01:56and this could represent a war crime.
02:00These families lost their documents when they were fleeing fighting.
02:03Sometimes ISIS took their documents,
02:05sometimes Iraqi security forces took their documents,
02:08and they ended up with absolutely nothing proving their identity.
02:12Now, as they try to get their documents back,
02:14when they go to governmental offices,
02:16they're told your father was ISIS, you are ISIS,
02:20you do not deserve your documents, we will not give them to you.
02:37Because of the missing documentation,
02:39they're really completely cut off from society.
02:42They're further and further marginalized,
02:44and that in and of itself I think is doing real damage
02:47to the fabric of Iraqi society
02:49in the context that these women, of course, have children
02:52and are raising children
02:53in a growing atmosphere of anger and resentment
02:55for the fact that they're being punished,
02:57not for anything they did,
02:59but what their loved ones, their husbands,
03:01their sons might have done.
03:02Are you going to return to the village
03:04or are you going to stay in the village?
03:07They were shocked.
03:09They didn't see what they were.
03:10They were like,
03:11they were like,
03:12they were like,
03:12they were like,
03:15they're not going to.
03:16They did not kill them,
03:16not to kill them.
03:17They would have잖아요
03:18and kill them.
03:19They were like,
03:19they're not going to kill them,
03:20They sure do not kill them,
03:21that they will kill them.
03:24She has two sons,
03:26who she said joined ISIS,
03:27and later died.
03:29Now she is raising her son's children
03:32and other children that were left in her care.
03:35Right now she has nine children she's taking care of and she's taking care of them all alone in this
03:40camp
04:22The minute that I leave that tent and I'm leaving this person to their thoughts having just dredged up old
04:29and painful memories is something that causes me a lot of concern
04:36There are many very difficult stories that I've heard and had to process
04:41The upbringing that I had really helped me to deal with some of the stuff that I see in my
04:45work
04:46I had the benefit of growing up in Switzerland, a very safe country, a country where I had access to
04:51education and a very stable environment
04:54Coming out of that what I felt very acutely and I already felt this in sort of my early teens
04:59was that because I was given all of that I really do have an obligation to use what was given
05:03to me to help those who don't have the same opportunities
05:22I do really worry about the kids in these families in particular and the extent to which that they're going
05:29to become radicalized
05:31Isis, which continues to be a concern in Iraq and isn't gone, is going to take that operation
05:36opportunity to target these children and to recruit them
05:39I really fear that you're just going to see the next wave in Iraq of radicalization
05:45I think most sensible people would agree that keeping that child out of school is not only unfair but it's
05:52actually dangerous to the country
05:53It's dangerous to have thousands perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of kids kicked out of the education system
06:00prevented from getting things like access to health care, access to welfare
06:04that is going to damage the fabric of Iraqi society
06:07What we want is for these families to be able to go home, for their kids to grow up at
06:24home
06:24but at least this would be in a limited way, a certain measure of success, that these kids would be
06:31in school
06:31I say to families, the problems that you're facing right now, I can't fix them
06:35All I can do is promise that I will share with the world the words that you gave me
06:42The work that we do can fundamentally bring about change
06:45We are able to use stories that people give us
06:49Give them a platform, an ability to speak very directly to a global community
06:55That ultimately is what brings about change
