Persecution, sexual abuse, and torture of Yazidi women and girls at the hands of the Islamic State (IS) were detailed in a report by Amnesty International published Monday.
The religious minorities are driven from the homes, kidnapped, sold as sex slaves, and face other forms of cruelty, and the details of some of their stories appear in the research paper "Escape from Hell- Torture, Sexual Slavery in Islamic State Captivity in Iraq."
Scores of Iraqi women have been sold or gifted to IS fighters, forced to convert to Islam, or have been raped and killed. Over 20 girls were kept in a room together in IS-controlled Mosul, and a 10-year-old and 12-year-old detailed the desperation of one of their fellow captives, Jilan.
"One day we were given clothes that looked like dance costumes and were told to bathe and wear those clothes," the girls told Amnesty International. "Jilan killed herself in the bathroom. She cut her wrists and hanged herself. She was very beautiful; I think she knew she was going to be taken away by a man and that is why she killed herself."
Jilan's brother confirmed that his sister believed she would be raped, and committed suicide out of fear. The pre-teens who reported Jilan's death were among those who escaped captivity.
Another escaped woman, Wafa, said that both she and her sister attempted to kill themselves after the militants threatened them with forced marriage.
"We tied the scarves around our necks and pulled away from each other as hard as we could, until I fainted...I could not speak for several days after that," Wafa, 27, recounted. Two other girls in the same room as the sisters saw their suicide attempt, and stopped them.
Randa, 16, was kidnapped along with her pregnant mother, and either sold or gifted to a man twice her age. She described the trauma of being raped by him.
"It is so painful what they did to me and to my family," she lamented. "Da'esh (the IS) has ruined our lives...What will happen to my family? I don't know if I will ever see them again."
