Horrified by Reports of ISIS Brutality against Women, UN Warns World Must Defeat Them

Isaiah Narciso : May 27, 2015
The Gospel Herald

"The countries I have worked on include Bosnia, Congo, South Sudan, Somalia and Central African Republic. I never saw anything like this. I cannot understand such inhumanity. I was sick, I couldn't understand." –UN Special Representative Zainab Bangura

(The Middle East)—Reports from Iraq and Syria have claimed that the terror group known as ISIS has engaged in acts of "extreme" sexual violence against women, including putting them up on the auction block. The enslaved women have few escape options. (Photo: Reuters/via Gospel Herald)

According to James Reinl of Middle East Eye, women who have escaped from the Islamic State's control have relayed harrowing stories of rape and other hideous acts of violence. The United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Bangura, heard many of these stories during a tour of refugee camps in the region.

"They are institutionalizing sexual violence," Bangura said of ISIS. "The brutalization of women and girls is central to their ideology. They use sexual violence as a 'tactic of terrorism' to advance key strategic priorities, such as recruitment, fundraising, to enforce discipline and order—through the punishment of dissenters or family members—and to advance their radical ideology."

Bangura told Reinl that she "struggled to understand the mentality of people who commit such crimes."

"They commit rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and other acts of extreme brutality," Bangura explained. "We heard one case of a 20-year-old girl who was burned alive because she refused to perform an extreme sex act. We learned of many other sadistic sexual acts."

Bangura elaborated on how the ISIS slave auctions worked. After the terror group occupied a village, they would execute all males 14 years and older before brutalizing the women. (Photo: Getty/via Gospel Herald)

"The women and mothers are separated," Bangura said. "Girls are stripped naked, tested for virginity and examined for breast size and prettiness. The youngest, and those considered the prettiest virgins fetch higher prices and are sent to Raqqa, the IS stronghold."

The U.N. special representative noted that sheikhs get first choice in the slave market, followed by emirs and fighters.

"They often take three or four girls each and keep them for a month or so, until they grow tired of a girl, when she goes back to market," Bangura said. "At slave auctions, buyers haggle fiercely, driving down prices by disparaging girls as flat-chested or unattractive. We heard about one girl who was traded 22 times, and another, who had escaped, told us that the sheikh who had captured her wrote his name on the back of her hand to show that she was his 'property.'"

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