Mika Haugen

Since 2025 I have been working with the Rural Sociology department on a project about the labour and the wellbeing of workers in regenerative agriculture. My interest and passion around the topic of labour and rural development grew during my master’s in Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University in 2022. My topic was how Yazidis experience, practice, and construct motherhood and family while being displaced in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and the Netherlands. I spent time with Yazidi families in asylum centres and homes in the Netherlands, as well as time with mothers in refugee camps in KRI. I looked at the division of labour in the household, changes in the perception around the role of mothers in Yazidi families, and how displacement has impacted family life.

To give some context to this topic, Yazidis are a Kurdish minority ethnoreligious group. The region they are indigenous to is primarily divided between Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. In 2014, the group known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) carried out a campaign of widespread violence and persecution across Iraq and Syria. Shia Muslims, Christians, and other religious and ethnic minorities fell victim to their violence. Among those targeted, the Yazidis of the Shingal (Sinjar in Arabic) region in Iraq endured the most systematic and brutal persecution. Yazidi religion is passed down orally and is not an Abrahamic religion, ISIS called them ‘not people of the book’ and ‘devil worshipers’ giving themselves permission to treat Yazidis as less than human. ISIS singled them out for extermination, subjecting thousands to massacre, sexual enslavement, and forced conversion in what has since been widely recognized as a genocide.  Those that could fled across the border into KRI, where they have been living in refugee camps set up by the UN for the past decade.

In 2019, ISIS was declared eradicated. Yet development in the Shingal region to repair the damage caused by ISIS has been limited. Shingal is a rural arid area in the northwest of Iraq in-between the protected KRI and the borders of Syria and Turkey. Many people who live in this region are subsistence farmers, primarily with animal husbandry such as sheep and goats. One reason for the limited development is the militia fighting between different groups trying to claim control in the region after the power vacuum left by ISIS. When doing my research in 2022, I was unfortunately unable to go to Shingal because it was considered too unsafe by the university and the aid organisation I was working with; it would have also required a different visa to go outside of KRI. However, my research participants showed me photos of how it is now and talked about their fears around returning. Despite the fear and trauma, some Yazidis have returned to their homeland to try to rebuild their lives. However, a lack of infostructure and economic opportunities in the region leaves many feeling unable to build the life they desire.

Many who stay in the KRI refugee camps lack the resources to establish a life outside of the camp. Yet the camps were designed to be a temporary solution to a crisis, leaving people stuck in a state of limbo. One strategy that many have adopted in search of a better life is to seek asylum in countries such as the Netherlands. The Netherlands was one of the first countries to declare that what ISIS did to the Yazidis in Shingal was a genocide. This recognition made it possible for hundreds possibly thousands of Yazidis (there are no exact numbers as Yazidis are only registered as Kurdish) from Iraq and Syria to relatively quickly be granted asylum.

On January 28^th and 29^th 2026, hundreds of Yazidis gathered in The Hague to protest the changes to asylum policies currently taking place in the Netherlands. In the past year changes to policies have made it more difficult for Yazidis to be granted asylum. One change is that Iraq has been declared a safe country for Yazidis. This is a serious and urgent issue because it means that not only are people having their asylum claims denied, but there are discussions taking place in parliament about sending back those who have already been granted asylum in this country. With all my work both past and present, I aim to contribute to discussions around justice and standup for people’s rights. The participants in my research wanted to take part with the explicit goal that more people would learn about who Yazidis are and what they have experienced.  Therefore, I felt a responsibility to try to raise awareness around this topic. As well as use my research to show that Yazidis are more than just victims or resistance fighters. They are mothers, fathers, sisters and sons who have a right to seek a safe and secure future for themselves and their families.

Link to Mika Haugen’s master’s thesis: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3455104