Every person has the right to an official name and identification under international conventions (such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child). This is both the state's fundamental responsibility and the child's fundamental right. One approach to ensure most, if not all, of one's human rights is to have an identity. Without identity, it is unclear which nation the child will call home, which state is in charge of providing for his safety, which parents are in charge of raising him, where he can attend school, who is in charge of providing for his medical needs, where he can purchase real estate and where he can participate politically (such as casting a ballot and candidacy for public and governmental office). A child's life would be considerably harder without these and many more rights.
Children of Yazidi women in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region present the most visible identity issues. After taking control of Sinjar and its surrounds in August 2014, ISIS members kidnapped and sold women into slavery and human trafficking. That is, they faced many types of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. As a result of raping and sexual assaults, hundreds of these women became unjustly pregnant and later became mothers. A significant issue now is that, in accordance with Islamic law, children born from this process are not acknowledged because their mothers are not Muslims (or Ahl al-Kitab), and due to the fact that their fathers are not Yazidis, they are also rejected by their mother's family. Since their fathers are unknown, neither the Iraqi government nor the KRG have been able to legally register these children. These Yazidi women now have a decision between choosing their children or their family members. To make the state register these children under their mothers' names, a civic movement called "My Name, My Mother's Name" was launched.
Seven years after the genocide and displacement of the Yazidis, the Iraqi parliament passed the Yazidi Women Survivors Law (No. 8 of 2021). Despite a concentration on the physical, mental and educational rehabilitation as well as the material and spiritual compensation for individuals affected by the ISIS attacks, the issue of unidentified children has gotten no attention. In accordance with the National Identity Card Act (No. 3 of 2016), the parents of a child must be identified before the child can be registered. The father's name will be on the registration and Children whose fathers are unidentified are listed as Muslims on birth certificates.
That is, there are numerous overlapped impediments. Additionally, they must come up with a legal remedy to ensure that the rights of the Yazidi children who lack identities are no longer denied their rights.