A 17-year-old girl in Britain is petitioning the U.K. government to save Iraqi women from sexual slavery by Islamic State.
In Rozin Khalil Hanjool’s online petition, published Tuesday, she said 3,000 Yezidi girls have been taken by the terror group, and if she was still in Iraq, she would be “so, so scared.”
Hanjool’s family fled Iraq in 2008 after the situation became too risky. The 17-year-old is from the Yezidi community, an ethnic and religious minority in northern Iraq. Her petition is aimed at rescuing Yezidi girls, some as young as 12, that have been kidnapped and enslaved by Islamic State.
She seeks to meet with government officials and encourage increased efforts to rescue Yezidi girls and provide support for recovery.
“These girls may seem far away, but they need our help. Every Yazidi woman and girl living in Iraq and Syria is in danger, the entire community lives in desperation,” Hanjool wrote.
Over 28,000 people have already signed Hanjool’s petition, according to The Telegraph. In a phone interview with the British newspaper, Hanjool said 50 girls have been kidnapped from her family’s village of Issia.
“A 12-year-old living in our village is pregnant. She really needs medical attention,” Hanjool told The Telegraph. “They’re scared the pregnancy might kill her. The community tries to help with money for shelter and so on, but there’s not enough food and water.”
Hanjool lives in Coventry, about 100 miles north of London, with her parents and five siblings. They have all become British citizens, The Telegraph reports.
The population of the Yezidi community is about 700,000, and the majority live in northern Iraq, according to The Guardian. Most Yezidis are ethnically Kurdish and their religion mixes elements of Zoroastrianism, Islam and Christianity.
The U.S. became involved in the campaign against Islamic State after the terror group trapped thousands of Yezidis on Sinjar Mountain last August.
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