The Anatomy of Erasure: Indigenous Assyrian Women and Forgotten Genocide

• Assyrians are an Indigenous West Asian ethnic group facing long-term systematic erasure, displacement, and historical neglect.
• Sexual violence against women is identified as a critical, overlooked tool of genocide used to fracture Assyrian cultural and social existence.
• Assyrian women lack the institutional documentation and recognition afforded to other groups, compounded by geopolitical powerlessness and forced assimilation.
• Remembrance efforts are increasingly reliant on community-led, volunteer-based initiatives as first-hand memories fade with older generations.

The Simele Massacre and Historical Context

• The 1933 Simele massacre in Iraq saw the Iraqi army and Kurdish tribes target Assyrians in a state-led ethnic cleansing campaign.
• Despite thousands of deaths, the massacre was never acknowledged by the state, and commanders involved were celebrated as heroes.
• The 1915 "Sayfo" genocide resulted in the loss of approximately 75 percent of the Assyrian population, yet remain largely unrecognised by regional powers.

Gendered Violence as a Tool of Genocide

• Assyrian women and girls have historically faced abduction, forced marriage, and sexual violence, which serves to destroy the group's social continuity.
• Unlike international efforts following the 1915 Armenian genocide, Assyrian women were never provided with official mechanisms for recovery, identification, or family reunification.
• Social stigma and regional legal frameworks—where children born of rape inherit the perpetrator's religious identity—have historically discouraged survivors from testifying.

Contemporary Erasure and Challenges

• Assyrians remain socio-politically disenfranchised, often excluded from constitutional recognition as an Indigenous people in Middle Eastern states.
• Modern conflict, including the rise of ISIS, continues to target Assyrians, yet their specific experiences of gendered violence are often subsumed into broader, less specific categories of "Christian persecution."
• Forced assimilation policies have pressured many Assyrian women to abandon their language and culture to integrate into dominant identities, leading to intergenerational loss of identity.
• Academic and historical archives remain largely silent on these specific gendered traumas, reflecting a systemic failure to record the history of a people divided across borders.