ISIS are allegedly selling the “prettiest virgins” from the women that they capture to sex slave markets in Syria.
Zainab Bangura, who is a UN expert and a special representative to the secretary general on sexual violence, has revealed these horrific details in a report. Ms. Bangura has visited various countries in the stricken region, including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, where she has spoken to women who have been treated in this fashion.
In fact, according to the Mirror , Bangura revealed how some brave women have even been viciously attacked and maimed because of their refusal to conduct “extreme sexual acts,” while she also explained how one woman had been burnt alive because of her evasion.
After ISIS fighters and terrorists have rampaged through villages and killed the male inhabitants, they reportedly conduct virginity tests on local women before they then send them to slave auctions, most of which are held at Raqqa, a Syrian city that has been adopted as the ISIS capital. At these gatherings, the women are sold naked.
Speaking to the Middle East Eye , Ms Bangura revealed that some individuals who are at these sex markets buy three or four girls at a time before they then decide to sell them a few months later. She tragically explained, “We heard of one girl who was traded 22 times and of a ISIS leader who had written his name on the girl’s hand to show that she was his ‘property.’ ” In fact, people who join ISIS expect that they’ll get to marry these slaves after they join.
Human Rights Watch reported last month that these “systematic sexual crimes” saw over 200 women and girls taken from their Northern Iraqi homes in August, 2014, while horrifying details of specific cases that have involved girls as young as 9-years-old have also been revealed.
The victims of these atrocities have been resorting to suicide by hanging themselves on their headscarves, and in an attempt to halt this epidemic of deaths, ISIS has even started to ban women from wearing this attire.
Bangura added that ISIS is specifically targeting girls from the Yazidi community. This community had previously been highlighted by the terrorists in their campaign to “purify” Iraq.
Liesl Gerntholtz, the Women’s Rights Director at HRW, has even explained, via the Daily Mail , that “ISIS forces committed organized rape, sexual assault, and other horrific crimes against Yazidi women and girls. Those fortunate enough to have escaped need to be treated for the unimaginable trauma they endured.”
[Image via Daily Beast ]