Boxing Sisters: Yazidi women boxing their way back to health

In northern Iraq, Yazidi women and girls who have been the victims of brutal sexual enslavement and lost swathes of their family and community to genocide at the hands of IS, are finding an unusual way to heal - boxing.

Since 2014, when ISIS began targeting Yazidis because of their religious identity, those who survived the genocide have been confined to internally displaced persons camps in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Here conditions are difficult and the women and girls still struggle to process all that has happened to them. So, in 2018, in the face of limited mental health support, Taban Shoresh and her team took a radical approach by offering boxing training to help the women and girls channel their emotions and anger.

For women who have lived through unspeakable trauma and loss, can the sport of boxing offer physical and mental restoration? And in a deeply traditional and conservative community, how are they navigating the stigma of women boxing?

Presenter: Taban Shoresh
Producer: Jodie Taylor
A Reduced Listening production for BBC World Service

(Photo: Yazidi women face each other in a row holding focus pads during training. Credit: Ali Amer)