ISIS Holding Thousands of Women and Children as Slaves in Iraq and Syria

ISTANBUL, Turkey — The Islamic State is currently holding thousands of people hostage inside ISIS territory, having taken members of the minority Yazidi sect captive this summer during a brutal campaign across northern Iraq.

See also: Slave to Terror: One Woman Sold to ISIS Tells the Story of Her Escape

While the United Nations has put the number of captives at about 2,500, other estimates are as high as 7,000. And prospects for any rescue are bleak.
Even as the U.S. and its allies bomb ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq, the group has managed to hold on to key cities where it is reviving the practice of slavery.

Many Yazidi families at the refugee camp near the town of Khanki in Iraq have lost loved ones after ISIS fighters overran their villages this summer

Image: Emily Feldman

The latest edition of Dabiq, an ISIS magazine, includes an impassioned argument for the practice as well as an account of how the Yazidi women from the Sinjar region of Iraq were distributed among the fighters.
“The Yazidi women and children were divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operation...to be divided as khums," a kind of tax.

"The enslaved Yazidi families are now sold by the Islamic State soldiers.”

"The enslaved Yazidi families are now sold by the Islamic State soldiers.” The magazine also warns “weak-minded and weak-hearted” ISIS followers who might question or object to the practice of slavery.
“Enslaving the families of the [infidels] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah,” the article says. “If one were to deny or mock [it], he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Quran.”

Amsha Ali Alyas managed to escape after she had been sold as a slave to an ISIS commander when the militants overran her village

Image: Emily Feldman

The article's description of how prisoners were dealt with closely mirrors accounts from the few who have escaped or managed to contact their loved-ones by phone.

Women were sold at slave markets, forced to marry and imprisoned in the homes of ISIS fighters

Women were sold at slave markets, forced to marry and imprisoned in the homes of ISIS fighters across both Iraq and Syria. In August as the radical group advanced toward the Sinjar mountains, home to the minority sect who practice an ancient religion that ISIS leaders consider sinful, word quickly spread about the militants' brutality and how they were taking young women as slaves and forcing families to choose between death and conversion to Islam.
As the militants approached the Yazidi villages near the Iraqi town of Rabia, Farman Suleiman Hasan, a 41-year-old farmer and de-facto head of his community, began to worry about his his oldest daughters.

Farman Suleiman Hasan hid his oldest daughters in a pit he dug on his farmland in Northern Iraq to save them from ISIS kidnapping.

Image: Emily Feldman

Horrified by the prospect of their abduction, he hatched a plan to protect them—digging a deep hole in the ground and instructing his daughters to hide there.
As the black-clad fighters arrived under the ISIS banners, they rounded up other Yazidis and forced them to recite the shahada, a Muslim profession of faith. Appeased by their conversion, the fighters did not linger but warned that they would come back.
“It was terrifying,” Hasan said. “Everyone was crying because we thought we had abandoned our religion. It was a very painful thing.”

Farman Suleiman Hasan's entire family was forced to convert to Islam by ISIS fighters who captured their village. Hasan told his children they were playing

Image: Emily Feldman

True to their word, the fighters returned days later and continued to return, several times a week, to deliver Islamic instruction. Each time they approached, Hasan's oldest daughters scrambled into the pit and cowered to avoid detection.
For weeks, this dark routine continued.

Eventually, the girls' nerves had become so frayed, they began discussing suicide.

Eventually, the girls' nerves had become so frayed, they began discussing suicide. When Hasan discovered his daughters had become so distressed they were thinking of taking their own lives, he decided it was time to flee. The family managed to escape to Dohuk, 90 miles away, where they now live as refugees. This week, Human Rights Watch released a report, warning that the abduction and abuse of Yazidi civilians may amount to crimes against humanity.

Yazidi refugees in the Khanki refugee camp in Iraq. Their villages were overrun by ISIS fighters.

Image: Emily Feldman

Yet the murky situation in both Syria and Iraq is expected to complicate both the investigation and prosecution of ISIS crimes, which are continuing to mount.
“Right now, Iraq has its hands full and does not have the capacity to investigate all the abuses,” said Letta Tayler, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The country is in a state of war, there is a new prime minister, now they have international intervention. I just don't think it's realistic that Iraq can prosecute these crimes on its own.”
In the meantime, thousands of women and children are still held captive inside ISIS territory, with little hope of being freed any time soon.

Two Yazidi girls in a refugee camp in Iraq. Their villages were overrun by ISIS militants.

Image: Emily Feldman