In the north of Iraq, Yazidis have been subjected to forced prostitution, recruited as child soldiers and enslaved. Human rights groups say that thousands of Yazidi women have been abducted and sold by IS fighters.

On Monday (December 18), North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) became the first German state to stop deportations of Yazidis to the region.

"Reports on the situation for this group in northern Iraq are worrying," the NRW minister for refugees, Josefine Paul, said in an interview with the news magazine Spiegel. "In the view of the [German] Foreign Office, the Iraqi government is not in a position to guarantee the protection of religious minorities in many regions," she added.

Also read: Nadia Murad: One woman’s fight against Islamic State

Government urged to protect Yazidis' future

NRW is the only German state to impose a formal ban on deportations for members of the Yazidi minority. Individual states can decide to call a halt to deportations for a period of three months, which can then be extended.

Paul has been pushing for a nationwide moratorium, without success. Max Lucks, a Green Party MP, appealed to the federal interior minister Nancy Faeser to "see the move by NRW as an invitation to find a long-term solution," Spiegel reported.

Paul accused Faeser of inaction and called on her to create a "legally secure future" for Yazidis in Germany.

The NRW government has not revealed how many Yazidi women and children the statewide ban will affect, according to Spiegel.

Also read: From ‘feeling dead’ to ‘inner peace’ – traumatized Yazidis build a new life in Germany

Germany hosts largest Yazidi community

Yazidis are a Kurdish religious minority with several hundred thousand members. The Yazidi faith combines elements of various Middle Eastern religions, primarily Islam, but also Christianity.

In January the German parliament recognized the crimes of IS, an extremist group calling itself 'Islamic State', against the Yazidis in northern Iraq and Syria as genocide. It was the first parliament of a large European country to do so.

At the time, Germany claimed to host the biggest Yazidi diaspora in the world. The parliament pledged to work hard to protect Yazidi life in Germany.

From January to September of this year, almost 4,000 asylum applications were submitted by Yazidis in Germany, according to figures from the Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). Nearly 2,900 of those who lodged applications are believed to be from Iraq. 

Wit KNA, Spiegel, dpa