Modern Slavery
Here's a terrible report from The Times which claims that slavery is alive and well within the Islamic State (IS), the practice being 'justified' by the religious views of Islamic extremists who say that their Holy Book permits kaffirs, infidels and non-believers to be treated in this way.
Now I don't think it really matters when the Koran says this or not, because the real issue is that a practice which may have been acceptable hundreds of years ago, for example slavery in the United States of America, cannot be defended now even for cultural or religious reasons.
And while it would be crazy to try and resolve every dispute or conflict by military means, the fact is that groups like the Islamic State and Boko Haram are not open to logic and reason because they believe they are carrying God's work.
Yazidi girls dragged by their hair into sexual slavery and sold for $25
Islamic State has forced hundreds into sexual slavery in the past five months
Reuters
By Anthony Loyd Shariya, northern Iraq - The Times
Islamic State has kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery hundreds, possibly thousands, of girls and women in the past five months, The Times can reveal, in what is thought to be the biggest case of enslavement this century.
Girls as young as 12 and their mothers have been seized and raped by Isis as part of a programme drawn from the earliest examples of Islamic slavery.
The women were torn from their families, classified according to age, education and marital status, and either sold or given to fighters as a reward. The sex slaves were traded openly at a market run by Isis. The group has published a guide to advise jihadists on permissible practices with a “concubine” and how to punish them. Sex with pre-pubescent girls is allowed under certain circumstances.
Teenage girls who escaped Isis were interviewed by The Times in Iraq. They described how women were grabbed by their hair and pushed on to lorries, before being driven to sorting centres.
Activists charting the plight of the slaves say that western Islamic converts were among the foreign fighters buying Yazidi women.
“I have a case of one escapee who was one of a group of girls bought and raped by two Australian brothers from Isis,” Amena Saeed, a Yazidi former MP, said. “These were not Australians of Islamic origin — these are white-skinned, blond-haired Australians: converts.”
Last week a Times investigation exposed the grooming and funding of British teenage girls to move to Syria to become jihadist brides. Eleven young women are known to have left Britain to marry Isis fighters, but the real number is believed to be much higher
Some of the young women walked quietly to their enslavement, some had to be dragged from the building by their hair. In this way Islamic State divided its spoils of war and committed hundreds, perhaps thousands of Yazidi women to captivity, rape and violence in possibly the largest act of enslavement this century.
“My mother started screaming and begging for mercy as the Daesh [Isis] fighters told my sister and me to join the group of younger women specially selected,” one 19-year-old Yazidi woman told The Times, recalling the moment that she was selected as a sex slave.
“But they tore us from her grasp,” added the woman, who can be known only by her initial as “Girl B” to protect her family. “I saw other women in the building being dragged out to waiting lorries by their hair.”
Girl B and her 14-year-old sister are among several Yazidi women who have managed to escape since they were seized from the town of Sinjar and surrounding villages by Isis fighters in early August.
The accounts of their ordeal are the foundation of a report released tomorrow by Amnesty International, Escape from hell — Torture, sexual slavery in Islamic State captivity in Iraq, which, with those of activists and advocates investigating their cases, suggests that the Isis plan to enslave the Yazidis was not only deliberate and co-ordinated, but part of a policy which regards sexual enslavement as central to the jihadists’ core spiritual values.
The Yazidis’ ordeal began on the first Sunday of August when Isis fighters swept into the town on the south side of the Sinjar Mountain. Girl B, her 14-year-old sister, their parents and six siblings including a girl of 11, fled.
As they approached the mountain sanctuary in a vehicle, they were cut off by the Isis advance. “They were local Sunni fighters, some of whom we recognised,” Girl B recalled. “A local mechanic was among them. The Sunni men in our area became Daesh as soon as they got a smell of them approaching. No one even had to ask them to join.”
First the captives were driven to a government building in Sinjar, one of numerous holding centres established by Isis. Here, among hundreds of Yazidi prisoners, the separation began.
“The Daesh took our names and ages and noted everything down,” said Girl B, who was interviewed with her sister and three other escapees by The Times in Northern Iraq last week. “Then they began dividing us: the men to one side, woman and children to another. Then they selected the young women, both married and unmarried. They told me and my two younger sisters to join that last group. We didn’t know what was happening, but our mother realised, and she began screaming.”
According to the sisters, their mother succeeded in wresting back her 11-year-old but her two other daughters were put on a truck, one of dozens of lorries, pick-ups and dumper trucks waiting to transport the girls to sexual enslavement hours after they were taken prisoner.
“It was organised, and they took us away like cattle,” Girl B said.“The sound was of shouting and yelling from the Daesh as we were pushed on to those lorries, and screaming from women.”
They were taken to Mosul, where they joined hundreds of other female captives in the city’s “Galaxy Hall”, another holding centre.
Here, guarded by IS fighters, the Yazidi women were questioned further and asked to give details of their level of education. A fortnight later the two sisters were moved twice more, each time in smaller groups which were divided out among Isis commanders, who inspected them and selected them along the way “as sheep”, until they ended up with a hundred other Yazidi girls in a house in the town of Baaj owned by a prominent Isis sheikh.
“There, the commanders of the Daesh came to look at us again,” Girl B said. “We were lined up while they came to inspect and buy us. I could see the dinars change hands.”
Girl B knew her buyer. “Abu Ghuffram”, an Isis commander in his forties, was a local Sunni with a pre-war reputation as a small-time criminal. Before joining Isis he had fixed gold teeth for clients, who included one of Girl B’s older sisters. Now he wanted slaves.
Girl B, her 14-year- old sister and another 14-year-old Yazidi slave were taken to Abu Ghuffram’s house in the village of Rambussi, and forced to serve the Isis commander and two of his captains.
Life alternated between domestic chores and violent assault.
“Sometimes he would call me by name and talk reasonably,” said Girl B, who in common with many Yazidi slaves was forcibly converted to Islam. “At other times the men would insult our Yazidi faith and curse us. If Abu Ghuffram was angry he would strike or kick me. Once he put his hands around my throat and tried to choke me.”
The accounts of their ordeal are the foundation of a report released tomorrow by Amnesty International, Escape from hell — Torture, sexual slavery in Islamic State captivity in Iraq, which, with those of activists and advocates investigating their cases, suggests that the Isis plan to enslave the Yazidis was not only deliberate and co-ordinated, but part of a policy which regards sexual enslavement as central to the jihadists’ core spiritual values.
The Yazidis’ ordeal began on the first Sunday of August when Isis fighters swept into the town on the south side of the Sinjar Mountain. Girl B, her 14-year-old sister, their parents and six siblings including a girl of 11, fled.
As they approached the mountain sanctuary in a vehicle, they were cut off by the Isis advance. “They were local Sunni fighters, some of whom we recognised,” Girl B recalled. “A local mechanic was among them. The Sunni men in our area became Daesh as soon as they got a smell of them approaching. No one even had to ask them to join.”
First the captives were driven to a government building in Sinjar, one of numerous holding centres established by Isis. Here, among hundreds of Yazidi prisoners, the separation began.
“The Daesh took our names and ages and noted everything down,” said Girl B, who was interviewed with her sister and three other escapees by The Times in Northern Iraq last week. “Then they began dividing us: the men to one side, woman and children to another. Then they selected the young women, both married and unmarried. They told me and my two younger sisters to join that last group. We didn’t know what was happening, but our mother realised, and she began screaming.”
According to the sisters, their mother succeeded in wresting back her 11-year-old but her two other daughters were put on a truck, one of dozens of lorries, pick-ups and dumper trucks waiting to transport the girls to sexual enslavement hours after they were taken prisoner.
“It was organised, and they took us away like cattle,” Girl B said.“The sound was of shouting and yelling from the Daesh as we were pushed on to those lorries, and screaming from women.”
They were taken to Mosul, where they joined hundreds of other female captives in the city’s “Galaxy Hall”, another holding centre.
Here, guarded by IS fighters, the Yazidi women were questioned further and asked to give details of their level of education. A fortnight later the two sisters were moved twice more, each time in smaller groups which were divided out among Isis commanders, who inspected them and selected them along the way “as sheep”, until they ended up with a hundred other Yazidi girls in a house in the town of Baaj owned by a prominent Isis sheikh.
“There, the commanders of the Daesh came to look at us again,” Girl B said. “We were lined up while they came to inspect and buy us. I could see the dinars change hands.”
Girl B knew her buyer. “Abu Ghuffram”, an Isis commander in his forties, was a local Sunni with a pre-war reputation as a small-time criminal. Before joining Isis he had fixed gold teeth for clients, who included one of Girl B’s older sisters. Now he wanted slaves.
Girl B, her 14-year- old sister and another 14-year-old Yazidi slave were taken to Abu Ghuffram’s house in the village of Rambussi, and forced to serve the Isis commander and two of his captains.
Life alternated between domestic chores and violent assault.
“Sometimes he would call me by name and talk reasonably,” said Girl B, who in common with many Yazidi slaves was forcibly converted to Islam. “At other times the men would insult our Yazidi faith and curse us. If Abu Ghuffram was angry he would strike or kick me. Once he put his hands around my throat and tried to choke me.”
