IS rapes and sells women into slavery for just $10
Islamic State militants in Iraq have created slave markets and are buying and selling women and children from the Christian and Yazidi minority groups for “dirt cheap”. The United Nations says at least 2,500 women and children in Iraq have been held captive, sexually abused and sold for $10 each by Islamic State fighters.
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| A Yazidi girl flees IS militants (Source: DM) |
These slave markets, located in the al-Quds area of Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, are also used to recruit new members to join IS.
The women, who were detained in August, have tried to contact the UN, having been allowed to keep their mobile phones. They say they have been repeatedly sexually assaulted.
The UN study was based on information taken from 450 interviews with Iraqi witnesses who were victims of war crimes.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein told the Daily Mail: "The scale of human rights violations and abuses committed by IS and its associated armed groups is truly shocking. Many of the group's actions may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity."
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| Protests in the US call for help for women enslaved by IS (Source: IBTimes) |
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Other witnesses have detailed how women were separated from their children by militants and forced to watch gruesome beheading videos.
A Yazidi woman was given to a group of 10 IS fighters as a reward. "We were sold for $10 to $12. Who can accept this? Can God accept it?" - the woman told Euronews - "It's a shame to rape a woman. But when she is raped by 10 men, what can you say about it? They are animals. They are not human. Because of them and I am always afraid".
The woman later managed to escape from her captors with the help of local residents and found safe refuge in Mosul.
Meanwhile, a 17-year-old girl said she was held captive by IS gunmen along with 40 other Yazidi women.
"I beg you not to publish my name, because I am so ashamed of what they did to me. There is a part of me that just wants to die. But another part still hopes that I will be saved and be able to hug my parents one more time," she told Italy's La Repubblica.
The newspaper interviewed the girl by calling her mobile phone. "We asked our captors to shoot us. But we were of great value to them. They kept saying we were infidels, non-Muslims. We were their property, like war trophies. They said we were like goats being taken to the market."
The UN human rights agency says that the trafficking of women as war spoils is currently occurring at very high levels./.
According to VNA