The Huffington Post recently reported on an interview with a 17-year old captured Yazidi girl. Over the summer, hundreds of women from the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq were kidnapped by ISIS militants. There have been several speculations regarding their treatment. But this 17-year old, who is not named, describes the conditions in which these women have had to endure.
According to Mayat (fake name), the militants are "people without a heart" who "do not even spare the women with small children."They are held in prison-like cells and are sexually abused daily.
"They treat us as if we are slaves. The men hit us and threaten us when we try to resist. Often I wish they would beat me so severely that I would die," Mayat exclaims. The women and girls are begging for death but the men of ISIS believe that women should be enjoyed for sex and can be discarded or sold as slaves.
Last month, the UN made this statement in regards to the violence committed by the ISIS fighters:
"We condemn, in the strongest terms, the explicit targeting of women and children and the barbaric acts the 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' has perpetrated on minorities in areas under its control, and we remind all armed groups that acts of sexual violence are grave human rights violations that can be considered as war crimes and crimes against humanity."(statement from social representative Nickolay Mladenov)
These are most certainly crimes against humanity. Girls like Mayat are enduring extreme pain and heart ache but continue to wait for their rescue.
Let me leave you with Mayat's chilling statement: "I don't know how much longer I can stand this. They've killed my body. Now they're killing my mind."
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