Report: ISIS sells Christian women, children for sex

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2016/06/03/report-isis-sells-christian-women-children-for-sex/

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS or ISIL, sells Christian women and children as sex slaves, setting the highest price for the youngest captives, according to a report by the Catholic group Knights of Columbus.

The report, submitted in early March to U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry by advocacy groups Knights and In Defense of Christians, a DC-based nonprofit which works to preserves Christianity in the Middle East, included a copy of a price list or menu for a “Yazidi or Christian woman” and “all children.”

The price list is part of a larger report documenting ISIS’s acts of genocide against Christians in the Middle East. The 278-page report identified more than 1,100 Christians out of thousands who have been killed by the Islamic State. Both Kerry and the U.S. House of Representatives have concluded that crimes committed by Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria amount to genocide. Among the violence listed – from beheadings, crucifixions, beatings and enslavement – is included sexual violence like forced marriages and human trafficking.

The reason for the price list? “We have received news that the demand in woman and spoils of war market has been experiencing a significant decrease, which adversely affects the Islamic State of Iraq revenue and the financing of the Mujahideen assaults,” says a letter dated Oct. 2014 and signed with the seal of the Islamic State, which is reproduced in the report.

The letter states that selling women and girls for less than the prices on the list can result in execution.

Women and children are grouped by age. “All children, aged 1 to 9 years old” are listed for 200,000 dinars, or, about 169 U.S. dollars.

Prices may have changed since the report was issued. CNN reported Thursday that buyers – mostly ISIS fighters – often barter for sex slaves at an online “marketplace.” CNN reports that in the online marketplace, the bidding for an 11-year-old virgin starts at $9,000. Another Fox News report suggested some militants are selling women online for $8,000.

Other reports have confirmed similar horrors. United Nations Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict  Zainab Bangura told the Guardian last summer that there are no numbers on women sold, but confirmed such buying and selling. A Human Rights Watch report in 2015 interviewed 20 women and girls who escaped from ISIS about their abuse in captivity.




  Islamic State Sex Slave Price


Contact Kara Bettis at [email protected] or on Twitter @karabettis