Iraqi Christian Woman ‘Married’ To Hundreds Of ISIS Fighters Only To Be Raped
ISIS fighters have reportedly used captured women as sex slaves since the beginning of their extremist reign in Iraq and Syria, but a new report of an Iraqi Christian woman details how the Islamic State uses some of their captives for sex after “marrying” them, only to then divorce the women and girls so another militant can “marry” them and have sex. The story, according to the Iraqi woman, is a common one, and she hopes her tale will be used to help protect Christians in the region.
Fox News reported on June 3 that, in an interview conducted by advocacy group In Defense of Christians (subsequently reviewed by Fox News), an Iraqi Christian woman, a recent escapee from ISIS-held Mosul, had recounted a story of being raped untold numbers of times by ISIS fighters who “married” her. She said that she was “married and divorced” as many as nine times every night, the “marriage” acting as some form of justification to her abusers in order to have sex non-committal with her.
“They had me whenever they would desire it. Especially this one, Farouk, who was obsessed with me and he would say, ‘I like the people of Jesus.'”
The interviewee’s name was withheld to protect her identity. She was raped by the militants following “weddings,” basically just phony marriage ceremonies. Shaking as she told her story, she was outraged at the thought of the acts being considered weddings, exclaiming, “For them it was a wedding, but what kind of wedding is this?”
In Defense of Christians President Toufic Baaklini says that the woman wants her story told to protect other Christians. He pointed out that others shared her fate, especially Christians and Yazidis.
https://www.facebook.com/Newsweek/posts/10153752234621101
In fact, the Independent reported in September that a woman had escaped ISIS captivity after killing a militant commander in Mosul who had forced her to become a sex slave for several of his fighters. According to Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) spokesperson Saeed Mamouzini’s remarks to al-Sumari TV, the woman was “married” to the ISIS commander’s underlings.
The woman said she was captured by ISIS militants in Mosul in 2014 while looking for her husband. He had disappeared after ISIS fighters had swept into the city. A mother-of-three, she left her two oldest children with neighbors and began her search with her baby in her arms. She said she stayed in Mosul out of hope that her husband would return.
But she was confronted by ISIS fighters one day, and they discovered the tattoo of a Christian cross on her arm. She and the baby were then sent to a school that had been converted into a slavery camp. From that moment on, she was assaulted again and again.
The woman stated in the interview, provided to Fox News as a tape and partial transcript, that she was able to escape what she called the “school of death” after an ISIS militant that recognized her from her old neighborhood in Mosul allowed her to get away. The In Defense of Christians organization even presented a price list for slaves. It indicated that children between the ages of 1 and 9 were demanding the highest prices.
https://www.facebook.com/UniversalFreePress/posts/1253649364681300
Tales of sex slaves and slave camps operated by ISIS have been common since the terrorist organization became a de facto regime in Syria and Iraq. A report issued in late May noted that some ISIS members seemed to be selling sex slaves on Facebook. But sex slaves are only part of the trafficking militants are engaged in. Experts have noted that ISIS also sells woman and children as house servants and for manual labor.
[Image via Shutterstock]
