E RBIL, Kurdistan Region – A young Kurdish Yezidi woman who became pregnant while being held as a sex slave of the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, for more than three months tells her story.
The woman, 15, is originally from Shingal. Her name has been changed to Hind in this account to preserve her safety. She was abducted when ISIS fighters overran the Yezidi’s ancestral homeland.
“On August 3 at 2am, the war started in Shingal. The fight lasted until 9am and then the Yezidis and Peshmerga were defeated. I left with my brother’s wife to my uncle’s house. I had my little sisters with me and my aunts had their daughters, and we managed to find a car. My father and mother along with my uncle walked to the mountain. Those who walked towards the mountain managed to escape but those who took a car were stuck and ISIS caught them,” she told Rudaw.
Hind said she distrusted some local Arabs and suspected they had waited for this moment to attack the Yezidis.
She said most of the families who failed to escape were caught on the Syrian border and then taken to a camp in Khansor.
Hind had said she and two of her sisters were taken to Baaj and then transferred to Tal Afar. After Tal Afar, they were taken to Badoosh prison where they stayed for 25 days
“They took us again to Tal Afar and we stayed in a school. They separated the families with the young girls. We were around 700 girls,” she said.
She said she stayed at a three-storey house in Mosul and one day one an ISIS emir came and took her and one of her friends.
“At 3am he raped me. That ugly monster,” she told Rudaw. “For more than three months, I cried myself from the morning until the night.”
Hind and her friends never lost hope. They tried to escape but they were caught by the militants and taken to base where hundreds of other Yezidi girls were held as hostage.
“My friend and I were taken to a basement and stayed there for one week with no water and food,” she said.
Hind and her friend were continuously transferred between places. She said they were even taken to Syria and then returned to the basement.
“I still live in fear and have nightmares every night,” she said.
“The first one who raped me was tall and had a long beard. He was originally from Syria,” she told Rudaw.
Hind said she was sold once for $200 and once given as a gift from one ISIS fighter to another.
Finally, she was forced to marry an ISIS member who eventually took her to a Christian house.
“We managed to find a cell phone and gave the phone to my friends and they charged it. I talked with my family and they helped us find a smuggler who was secretly working to buy the girls who were in ISIS captivity,” she said.
“At 3am, my friends and I jumped from the second floor. A car arrived and took us to a house in Mosul. We stayed there for three days. Another smuggler came to take us to Jazira near Mosul,” she said.
Hind managed to return back to the Kurdistan region in November 2014. Four of her siblings are still held by ISIS.
“I would look them in the eye and ask, ‘Why are you doing this? Don’t you fear God?’ I told them, ‘We are the same age as your daughters. There is no mercy in your hearts. You hit me. You rape me’.”
She said the ISIS fighters would say, “Islam allows it and we will do it.”
“They forced me to read Quran and pray in front of them. And I had no choice but to obey,”
Hind said most ISIS members are foreigners and some spoke English. She said some were from Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the United States, China and other countries. She said the foreigners mostly stayed in Syria and did not come to Iraq.
During her captivity, she noticed that the militants were eager to pray and fast. She said they frequently mentioned heaven.
Hind said that some ISIS members drank alcohol, but only in secret because it is not allowed in Islam.
Hind said some of the foreign women who joined ISIS were very happy. She said a woman from the UK told her, “ISIS is very good. They provide us with everything: money, houses and guards.”
Hind said went to school and learned how to read and write, but after what ISIS did to her she remembers nothing.
“I was raped by three different ISIS members with different nationalities. I had no idea I was pregnant. I felt sick all the time and one day I started to bleed. I was taken to the doctor and they told me I was pregnant. I lost the child because the child was threatening my life,” said the woman.
“I am just happy that I did not carry an ISIS child into this world,” she said.
Hind was also left heartbroken and ashamed.
“Before ISIS attack, I was in love with a guy. After I returned, he told me that he is not interested in me anymore because I was raped,” she said.
Hind said that she has no desire to get married.
Hind now lives at a camp with her family in Erbil.
“Life at the camp is very hard, “ she said.
“Soon, I will leave to Europe and will never come back, even if this place becomes a heaven on earth.”
