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Gallery|Human Rights

Trials of ISIL widows in Iraq

Up to 1,000 women are on trial in Iraq for ‘joining and supporting’ the ISIL armed group.

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HIjran, born in 1994, is originally from Sadaqiyye, near Hawija. She is currently detained in Shaham Camp, near Tikrit with her children. Family members of ISIL rebels are held all together in different camps throughout the country. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
By Marta Bellingreri and Alessio Mamo
Published On 30 May 2018

When Mariam arrived in Mosul from Moscow in 2014, together with her husband and their kids, she could not imagine that one day she would spend months in prison and would have to answer the court on charges of being a “terrorist”.

“I was thinking, as a Muslim, of spending a better life in an Islamic country like Iraq,” Mariam said from the court’s cell, holding her small child, Oussama.

Mariam is accused of being an ISIL member and risks spending the rest of her life in prison if convicted. She is not alone.

Up to 1,000 women accused of being ISIL members were detained in Iraq after the “terrorist group” was routed from the country. They are now being held accompanied by up to 820 infants, with some others yet to be born.

Most of the women had been widowed by the war against ISIL. They all wait for their hearings in a country where the justice system is described by rights groups as “fragile”.

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A woman originally from Yatreeb, Iraq, moved to Mosul with her husband to join ISIL in 2014. They were previously farmers. The woman says that her husband joined ISIL after his brother was killed by Iraqi army. She is living now in al-Shaham Camp with her three children. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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Up to 1,000 women accused of being ISIL members are held in Iraq after the "terrorist group" was routed from the country. Most of the women had been widowed by the war against ISIL. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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Oussama, Mariam's daughter, was born in Iraq. Her mother is from Russia. She came to Iraq with her husband, believing to live a better life. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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Women from Russia and Tajikistan with their children are waiting their turn for the hearing at the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad, Iraq. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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One of Saddam Hussein’s castles in Tikrit that was destroyed after the US invasion. Next to this place, some 1935 cadets were killed by ISIL on June 12, 2014. The incident is known as the Camp Speicher or Tikrit massacre. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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An ISIL member in a small cell at the Court of Hamdaniya, Iraq, on May 3, 2017. At that hearing, he was at the court as a witness and not as an accused. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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Ismail H, born in 1987, at the 'counterterrorism court' of Mosul, in Hamdaniya, Iraq. Ismail was a member of ISIL. He surrendered to the Iraqi forces. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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In the court's male cell, where the prisoners wait for their turn to see the judge at the Central Criminal Court of Baghdad. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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A man accused of being an ISIL member in front of the judge at the trial at the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad, Iraq. He doesn’t have a lawyer and declares himself to be innocent. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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Before entering the courtroom at the Central Criminal Court of Baghdad, prisoners wait in a corridor. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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Some corpses of people who died during the battle in Mosul in 2017 left for more than a week in the Old City of Mosul. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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Al-Nuri Mosque in the Old City of Mosul was blown up by ISIL in June 2017 during the final phase of the battle in the city. In this mosque in June 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a self-styled caliphate, the Islamic State or ISIL. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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A child playing in the rubbles near the Al-Nuri Mosque in the Old City of Mosul. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]
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An Iraqi soldier on guard duty in the Old City of Mosul. Though the city was liberated from ISIL in July 2017, arrests of ISIL fighters continue in the city. [Alessio Mamo/Al Jazeera]