Earlier this month, Kurdish forces retook the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from the Daesh fighters that had held the territory since 2014. They found two mass graves in and near the town that was once home to the Yazidis, an ancient religious minority. In one of the graves there were 78 elderly women. The other grave held between 50 and 60 men, women and children. Seven more mass graves had been found earlier this year in a nearby town retaken from the Daesh.
According to an August 2015 report in the New York Times,
The Islamic State’s formal introduction of systematic sexual slavery dates to Aug. 3, 2014, when its fighters invaded the villages on the southern flank of Mount Sinjar, a craggy massif of dun-colored rock in northern Iraq.
Its valleys and ravines are home to the Yazidis, a tiny religious minority who represent less than 1.5 percent of Iraq’s estimated population of 34 million.
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Survivors say that men and women were separated within the first hour of their capture. Adolescent boys were told to lift up their shirts, and if they had armpit hair, they were directed to join their older brothers and fathers. In village after village, the men and older boys were driven or marched to nearby fields, where they were forced to lie down in the dirt and sprayed with automatic fire.
The women, girls and children, however, were hauled off in open-bed trucks.
Apparently not all of the women and children were hauled away. The elderly women were not needed by the new regime.
Of the 5,270 Yazidis that were captured in 2014, at least 3,144 were still being held this past August, according to the report. That the Daesh planned this in advance is demonstrated by the detailed travel arrangements that were made for the women as they were bused from one stop to the next in preparation for their sale as slaves. The busses had curtains over the windows because the heads of the Yazidi women were not covered in burkas, scarves or veils. The Daesh had printed, notarized contracts of sale, as well as manuals for the proper treatment of slaves and pamphlets for FAQs.
The strict enforcement of the Sharia law practiced by the Daesh calls for women to become guards of the Yazidi slaves until their sale. That is one of the jobs that fall to the Khansaa Brigades.
According to the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), on February 2, 2014, the Daesh announced the formation of two brigades of Al-Khansaa. One that would work at the border checkpoints and a second one, “Umm Al-Rayan Centre of Operations Al-Khansaa brigade [that] is active in Raqqa.”
In 2014, according to Abu Ibrahim a-Raqawi, the pseudonym of a founding member of the Al-Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), the Daesh fighters were surprised, and then assassinated, by FSA (Free Syrian Army) members who dressed as women, complete with hijab, and proceeded through their checkpoints. Sharia does not allow the men to search women. So the Daesh started recruiting women for the express purpose of examining women, or those dressed as women, at checkpoints.
The Khansaa brigade, also known as the morality police, enforce the strict dress code of the Daesh on the streets of Raqqa after they receive their training. That training includes 15 days of weapons training, plus religious training that focuses on the “laws and principles of Islam.”
If a woman’s abaya (long black gown) is too tight or her niqabs (black veils) too transparent, she is taken to a local police station where she is whipped by members of the brigade. Twenty lashes is the penalty for a tight abaya, five lashes for wearing make-up under niqabs, and five lashes for a lack of meekness when confronted by the brigade members.
From William McCants new book, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State:
They offer women who flout the strict dress code a choice between flogging and the “biter.” “I did not know what a ‘biter’ was,” recalled one woman. “I thought it is a reduced sentence, I was afraid of whipping, so I chose the ‘biter.’” The Khansa women pressed a “sharp object that has a lot of teeth” to her breast. “I screamed from pain and I was badly injured. They later took me to the hospital.” “I felt then,” she recalled, “that my femininity has been destroyed completely.”
TRAC has estimated that perhaps as many as 200 women, or as much as 15 percent of all foreign fighters in Daesh, are women. They come from at least 14 different countries, often lured there over the internet. The Christian Science Monitor reported in September of 2014, that there were 150 French women in Syria. It is hard to determine the exact number of foreign women living under the rule of the Daesh or participating in the Khansaa brigades.
But the women from overseas were treated very well by the Organization:
It soon became clear that the foreign women had more freedom of movement, more disposable income and small perks: jumping to the front of the bread line, not having to pay at the hospital. Some seemed to have unfettered Internet access, including multiple Twitter profiles.
“The foreign women got to do whatever they wanted,” Asma complained. “They could go wherever they wanted.”
“They were spoiled,” Aws said. “Even the ones that were younger than us had more power.”
In the March 2015 interview with Syria Direct, a-Raqawi, of RBSS, talked about how well the foreign fighters are treated by Daesh.
Ordinary people pay taxes. All the stores inside the city pay SP1,500 ($8) for water and electricity, SP800 ($4.20) for phone service, all considered a luxury tax—not counting Zakaat. There is a cleanliness tax, even houses are charged SP800 ($4.20) for phones, water and electricity, or SP1,000 ($5.30), according to the house. There's a cleanliness tax, and any person who throws garbage in a non-licensed location pays SP5,000 ($26.40).
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IS pays very close attention to its fighters, particularly the foreigners. They make sure that the foreign fighters enjoy a decent amount of comfort. No doubt their situation is much better than the residents.
The fighters' salaries range from $700-$1,500, according to the fighter, his importance and position, e.g. if he's a doctor, engineer, or ordinary person. IS helps out its fighters in general, for example by giving them houses, and if there was a surplus of cars, by giving them cars. Their lives are wonderful compared to that of the residents.
And, Daesh will do all it can to find them wives. Multiple wives if necessary.
The Evening Standard reported last year that:
IS needs a stream of women both because the offer of an attractive young Western bride is central to its recruitment of foreign fighters and because producing what they call “young lions” is a requirement of state-building.
Apparently women, under the rule of the Daesh can be sex slaves, enforcers or wives of fighters. Sometimes they are both enforcers and wives. If she is a Western woman she was likely lured in via social media which Daesh expertly uses as propaganda outlets.
David Remnick, of the New Yorker, is on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which is presenting an International Press Freedom Award award to RBSS and which arranged for him to interview members of Al-Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.
“I can say that women are the people suffering the most under ISIS,” one R.B.S.S. member said. “They can’t show their faces. ISIS bothers them a lot. They take sticks and slash them on the street if the veil shows the eyes. They say, ‘Hey, hey, do you want to marry me?’ People have become so poor, the families so weak, that some give up their daughters to ISIS. They accept it. Sometimes ISIS forces them to do this. The Yazidis—ISIS says these people believe in Satan. And because of that their women are just traded from man to man in ISIS, sold, raped, abandoned.”