In an instance that sheds light on the derogatory treatment meted out to women under the custody of ISIS, a nine-year-old girl was reportedly raped by an ISIS militant in an open hall where she was being detained along with several other women.
The report ‘Children of the Islamic State’ was compiled by Quillium, a London-based counter extremism think-tank.
The report cited individual case studies, where women recounted stories of rape and torture. One woman who was held captive recounted how she saw an IS man point a gun at a young girl who had been resisting.
Another girl said she was raped in a hall where she was being detained with other women in Mosul after her abduction by IS. She said the guards raped her three times a day for three days. She added that she also saw an eight or nine-year old girl being raped openly in the hall.
The report also claimed that the organisation was working on systemic rape and sexual abuse of girls and women, with over 31,000 pregnant women within confinement, aimed at progressing the next generation of ISIS.
“I used to hear a lot of cries and screaming from the other girl in the house. God knows what the man was doing to her. She was too young to understand and probably was very scared,” the report quoted another survivor as saying with reference to the other girls who were ‘sold’ to her ‘master’.
She also said that the ISIS fighter who bought her raped her and if she tried to resist, he would beat her with his shoes.
Reports by the United Nations in the past have also revealed the inhuman treatment to girls in the ISIS held territories, where girls are stripped and paraded in slave markets, and sold for sex by the ISIS members.
In one horrific instance, one girl had been temporarily married over 20 times, and after each occasion was forced to undergo surgery to repair her virginity.
Women and girls belonging to the Yazidi tribe are targeted for the institutionalised sexual violence perpetrated by the organisation as they are non-Muslims. Raping and torture of non-Muslim women is sanctioned under the group’s radical interpretation of the scriptures.
