Ladies and gentlemen,

Not all participants were from the German Special Quota Program. Some were selected randomly. Since IS attacked in 2014, 78,000 Yazidis have emigrated to Germany. Among the emigrants, there are several hundred women who had been taken captive by IS. In the meantime, more than 200,000 Yazidis live in Germany.

In the interview with the German newspapers, I said that 90% of the women from the special quota are traumatized. But not all of them are diagnosed with PTSD. This interview was published in several other newspapers. This is a misunderstanding.

The women from the special quota, and also the other women who had been taken captive by IS, need special treatment. Concretely, they must be treated through a culturally sensitive trauma therapy. I have already discussed this in detail in several other articles.

It is certainly correct that I should have described the difference in detail in the “Participant” section of the article. However, I was compelled to shorten the length of the study for reasons of publication.

The study was accepted by the Ethical Board of Duhok University, where I am currently Dean of the Institute of Psychotherapy and Psychotraumatology.

Yours sincerely,

Jan Ilhan Kizilhan