For ISIS, women are ‘war booties’ with price tags

UNITED NATIONS – For the terrorist group ISIS, women are goods to be raped, sold as sex slaves or given as “war booties” to its fighters. Christians and other religious minorities under siege in Iraq also face a dire choice: convert or die.

These are among the grim findings of a new United Nations report documenting the human rights violations of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), many of which the UN said amounted to war crimes or crimes against humanity. 

In the report covering Iraq from July 6 to September 10, the UN said that ISIS perpetrated sexual and physical violence, dealing with women “particularly harshly.”

ISIS even opened an office in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, for the sale of abducted women.

“Women and girls are brought with price tags for the buyers to choose and negotiate the sale. The buyers were said to be mostly youth from the local communities. Apparently, ISIL was ‘selling’ these [Yazidi] women to the youth as a means of inducing them to join their ranks,” the UN said, using another acronym for ISIS.

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the Office for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights produced the report, which they called “terrifying and horrific.” The UN released the report on Thursday, October 2.

The report said that ISIS fighters sexually assaulted both teenage females and males. Married and unmarried women were given to fighters as wives and “reward.”

“ISIL had forced some women to convert and were marrying them to ISIL fighters, and was allotting other women who refused to convert as war booty to ISIL fighters or were being sold as sex slaves.”

The report noted the case of an adolescent girl from the Yazidi religious minority whom ISIS abducted when it attacked her village on August 3.

“She stated that ISIL took hundreds of women who had not been able to flee to [Mount] Sinjar…. The girl stated that she was raped several times by several ISIL fighters before she was sold in a market.”

The terror group also tore apart families from a Christian community attempting to flee.

“Before the minibus was about to leave, an ISIL fighter seized a 3-year old girl; when the mother, who was on the minibus, begged them to return her daughter to her, ISIL threatened to kill her and her entire family if she did not get back on the bus. The woman was forced to leave her daughter behind.”

ISIS is a radical Sunni Muslim terrorist group infamous for atrocities against civilians, and for beheading soldiers, journalists and aid groups. The UN said there were at least 11,159 casualties from June to August, with the number including 4,692 civilians killed and 6,467 wounded.

ISIS seeks to establish a so-called Islamic Caliphate, and draws thousands of foreign terrorist fighters from all over the world. Initially an Al-Qaeda offshoot, the group is so brutal that the terrorist organization denounced it.

The US is leading an international coalition to “degrade and destroy” ISIS, with efforts including airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. The UN, its members and aid groups also launched humanitarian efforts to respond to the needs of the refugees.

Christians ‘cleansed’ from areas

The UN said that ISIS targeted ethnic and religious communities including Christians, Turkmen, Shabak, Yazidi, Sabaeans, Kaka’e, Faili Kurds, and Arab Shi’a, at times aimed at “destroying, suppressing or cleansing them from areas under their control.”

“On 16 July, ISIL was distributing leaflets among Christians in [Mosul] ordering them either to convert or to pay jizyah (toleration/protection tax), to leave or face death.”

To force them to leave, ISIS marked the doors of houses to indicate if the occupants were Christians or Shi’a Muslims. Some Christians though were “too poor or otherwise not able to leave.”

Places of worship were not spared.

“ISIL and associated armed groups continued to attack and wantonly destroy places of religious and cultural significance that did not conform to its takfiri doctrine. Sunni and Shi’a mosques, Christian churches and monasteries, [Yazidi] shrines, Kaka’e shrines, and other religious, historical or cultural significant sites have all been targeted,” the report stated.

It was the plight of the Yazidis fleeing on foot in Mount Sinjar that US President Barack Obama cited when he first announced airstrikes in Iraq in August, two years after ending the Iraq war. 

The UN said the situation drove some to despair. “Some reported to have seen, while fleeing from [Mount] Sinjar, the bodies of at least 200 children who had died from thirst, starvation and heat. Witnesses also stated that some women with their children had thrown themselves off the mountain in desperation.”

UN won’t discuss airstrikes in Syria

Pope Francis has condemned the persecution of Christians and religious minorities, urging the international community to stop the attacks by acting collectively through the UN, instead of nations like the US “acting alone.”

Yet the UN Security Council has not taken up the US airstrikes. Argentina’s Ambassador to the UN Maria Cristina Perceval, whose country holds the council’s presidency this month, said Thursday that the topic is not on the body’s agenda. The US conducted airstrikes against ISIS in Syria without authorization from the Council and consent from the Syrian government. 

To address the human rights violations detailed in the report, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urged the Iraqi government to agree to the Rome Statute so that the atrocities can be raised before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“This type of situation, where massive gross violations and abuses are taking place, including direct targeting of many thousands of civilians because of their religious or ethnic identity, is precisely why [ICC] was created,” Zeid said. – Rappler.com

Rappler multimedia reporter Ayee Macaraig is a 2014 fellow of the Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists. She is in New York to cover the UN General Assembly, foreign policy, diplomacy, and world events.