ISIS embraces sex slavery, using contracts and courts to govern the practice
ISIS—also known as the Islamic State group—has embraced sex slavery and is regulating the practice with sales contracts notarized by ISIS-run courts, according to a newspaper investigation.
The girls and women who are taken as sex slaves belong to the Yazidi religious minority, the New York Times reports. ISIS not only accepts the practice, it casts the sexual assaults as spiritually beneficial. ISIS characterizes Yazidis as infidels because their religion worships seven angels. One of those angels, one captive was informed, is the devil.
According to the Times, “The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution.”
The practice began last August after ISIS invaded northern Iraqi villages on Mount Sinjar inhabited by the Yazidis. Men and older boys were killed, while women and children were forced onto trucks and buses. Eventually the women and girls as young as 11 were sold for sex.
Contracts govern the purchase and sale of sex slaves to new buyers, according to recent escapees. A “certificate of emancipation” was drafted to set one victim free after her captor explained that he would soon be blowing himself up as a suicide bomber. An Islamic State judge signed the certificate.
