Teenage girls abducted by Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria are being sold in slave markets”for as little as a pack of cigarettes or for several hundred dollars,” the UN envoy on sexual violence has said.
Zainab Bangura who visited Iraq and Syria in April, and has since been working on an action plan to address the dreadful sexual violence being waged by IS fighters.
“Jihadists continue to run slave markets for girls abducted during fresh offensives, but the exact number enslaved by the fighters is not yet known”, said Bangura.
The UN envoy described the nightmare of several teenage girls, who spoke to women and girls who managed to escape from the captivity of ISIS, met with local religious and political leaders and visited refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
“Some were taken, locked up in a room and over 100 of them in a small house — stripped naked and washed.”They were then made to stand in front of a group of men who decided “what you are worth.”
Bangura gave the account of a 15-year-old girl who was sold to an IS leader,aged in his 50s, who showed her a gun and a stick and asked her “tell me what you want.” “She said ‘the gun’ and he replied: ‘I didn’t buy you so that you could kill yourself'”, Bangura said.
Abducting girls has become a key part of the IS strategy to lure foreign fighters who have been traveling to Iraq and Syria in record numbers over the past 18 months. “The foreign fighters are the backbone of the fighting.” “This is how they attract young men – we have women waiting for you, virgins that you can marry,” Bangura said.
A recent UN report said close to 25,000 foreign fighters from over 100 countries were involved in conflicts worldwide, with the largest influx by far into Syria and Iraq.
A UN technical team is due to travel to the region soon to work out details of the plan to help victims of IS sexual violence.