HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
21-year-old Yazidi woman, Nadia Murad Basee Taha, was visibly affected while relating her horrific tale, in which she was held for three months by a member of the terror group, beaten, humiliated and raped PHOTO/Daily Mail
The extremist armed group Islamic State should urgently release Yezidi women and girls they abducted in 2014, Human Rights Watch said today, following new research with recent escapees who were raped and traded between members before they fled. Islamic State (also known as ISIS) also routinely imposes abusive restrictions on other Iraqi women and girls and severely limits their freedom of movement and access to health care and education in areas under its control, Human Rights Watch said today.
In January and February 2016, Human Rights Watch interviewed 21 Sunni Muslim Arab women from the Hawija area of Iraq and 15 women and girls from the Yezidi minority ethnic group, all of whom had fled ISIS-controlled areas, most in late 2015. Several of the Yezidis, abducted by ISIS in mid-2014, had spent more than a year in captivity. They described being forcibly converted to Islam, kept in sexual slavery, bought and sold in slave markets, and passed among as many as four ISIS members. Human Rights Watch first documented systematic rape of Yezidi women and girls in early 2015.
“The longer they are held by ISIS, the more horrific life becomes for Yezidi women, bought and sold, brutally raped, their children torn from them,” said Skye Wheeler, women’s rights emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Meanwhile, ISIS’s restrictions on Sunni women cut them off from normal life and services almost entirely.”
The Sunni women Human Rights Watch interviewed had fled areas under ISIS control since June 2014 in western Kirkuk governorate and had arrived in areas controlled by forces of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). All of the Sunni women and girls reported severe restrictions on their clothing and freedom of movement in ISIS-controlled areas. They said they were only allowed to leave their houses dressed in full face veil (niqab) and accompanied by a close male relative. These rules, enforced by beating or fines on male family members or both, isolated women from family, friends, and public life.
The longer they are held by ISIS, the more horrific life becomes for Yezidi women, bought and sold, brutally raped, their children torn from them. Meanwhile, ISIS’s restrictions on Sunni women cut them off from normal life and services almost entirely.
Skye Wheeler, women’s rights emergencies researcher
Families living under ISIS also face intensified suffering from escalating food prices and cash shortages, especially since Iraq’s government stopped sending civil service salaries to ISIS-controlled areas in mid-2015. They also live in fear of airstrikes by United States-led coalition and Iraqi government forces. Those interviewed said the combination of food shortages, fear of airstrikes, and abuse by ISIS led them to flee.
Eleven of those interviewed reported restricted access to health care or education because of discriminatory ISIS policies, including rules limiting male doctors from touching, seeing, or being alone with female patients. In more rural areas, ISIS has banned girls from attending school. ISIS fighters and female ISIS “morality police” hit, bit, or poked women with metal prongs to keep them in line, making them afraid to try to get services they needed.
Women Living Under Muslim Laws for more