A young Yazidi woman revealed that she repeatedly begged God to kill her to end her suffering at the hands of the loathsome Islamic State (ISIS) militants who raped, tortured and enslaved her for 16 months.
Khalida, 20, narrated recently to MailOnline her harrowing experiences under ISIS captivity after finally regaining freedom when her last ISIS master agreed to sell her to her brother.
Khalida said she was kidnapped by ISIS militants in 2014 when she and her family were trying to flee their hometown of Sinjar in Iraq after it had been overrun by ISIS fighters.
She said she, her sisters and female cousins were taken to Raqqa, Syria to be sold as sex slaves.
In Raqqa, Khalida and the other girls were put on display in a "meat market" where women are purchased for as little as a mobile phone, or simply given away as "gifts."
"We were put on display. Men came in and looked at us like objects. It was like a car showroom. Women were bought for cash—as little as $20, or exchanged for things like mobile phones, or given away as gifts," she said. "The most beautiful women were put into a special room. Then five top ISIS leaders—emirs—came to choose girls. They took away three or four girls each. I was very afraid. I didn't know what would happen to me—raped, murdered?"
She said she and her cousin were bought by an old Syrian man who kept them in a small room, where he repeatedly raped and tortured them. The man's wife would also beat them for "tempting" her husband.
Khalida said she was bought and sold by eight different men, and underwent daily abuse, torture, and rape. She was force-fed contraceptive pills and once taken to hospital for a contraceptive injection after she fell unconscious following a brutal gang rape.
"They [ISIS] did not want me get pregnant, especially if there was more than one man because they would not know who the father of the baby was," she said.
During her ordeal Khalida escaped three times but was recaptured each time and returned to her "slave master."
Khalida said she tried to kill herself many times using different techniques to once and for all end her misery. "I tried to kill myself many times. I covered myself in water and put my hand on electric cables but I always survived," she said.
"I asked God to kill me. I thought it was better to die than to live as a sex slave with what they were doing to me, every day."
The young woman finally regained her freedom after she convinced her "slave master" to sell her back to her family for $24,000.
"I begged him and kissed his feet begging for him to contact my family," Khalida told MailOnline.
"I begged him every day for two months," she added. "Finally he let me call my brother Faisal. He told him he would sell me for $30,000. I told him my family were poor and had nothing, that they had abandoned their home. I had to barter for my life. Finally he agreed to sell me [for $24,000]."
She now lives in Duhok, northern Iraq. She vowed live a full and successful life despite her horrific ordeal.
Khalida is just one of hundreds of Yazidi and Christian women in the Middle East who have suffered from the brutality of ISIS militants.
