Excellencies ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the German government for inviting me to address the Security Council today on the topic of accountability for sexual violence in conflict.
It is an honor to be included among such a distinguished panel of speakers.
In preparing to deliver these remarks alongside Nadia, my client, my friend and somebody I greatly admire, I thought back to a conversation we had when we first met.
Nadia told me of her suffering at the hands of 12 different Isis men who enslaved and brutalized her.
She recounted the murder of her mother and brothers.
She showed me threatening messages that she had received from Isis on her phone.
And as she did this, it occurred to me that she never expressed fear for her life, for her safety.
Instead, that day and ever since, she has spoken of only one fear that when this is all over, the ISIS men will just shave off their beards and go back to their normal lives, that there will be no justice.
I am legal counsel to Nadia and two other Yazidi women and girls who were kidnapped, bought, sold and slaved and raped by Isis, and my brief is the pursuit of justice.
But it was clear from an early stage that this was going to be a challenge.
