DUHOK, Kurdistan Region - Many of the Kurdish Yezidi women captured by the Islamic State, or ISIS, during its August attack on the Shingal Region have in the past nine months gone from spoils of war to objects of trade. Women who managed to escape from ISIS – some 650 by the end of last month – say they were sold and resold as many as 10 times between the ISIS fighters and their emirs. The selling of the girls started soon after their capture, with amounts being paid for what ISIS called “slaves” ranging between $25 to $800. Most were sold after days or weeks to another ISIS-member, and always for a higher price, according to Jameel Ghanim, who leads the Yazda Foundation in Duhok. “All is money for ISIS, and the girls too. It is allowed for them to sell them. A jihadi will marry her by force and after a week or so he will sell her to another jihadi. Of course he makes money, selling her for a higher price,” Ghanim said. Madiha, 30, was sold four times, together with her 3-year-old daughter. The Saudi ISIS fighter who bought her in ISIS stronghold Raqqa, in Syria, sold her to an Iraqi doctor who treated wounded ISIS fighters and already had one other Yezidi girl. He raped them both multiple times After a six weeks, he sold her to a Saudi emir, who beat her, raped her and forced Islam on her, before selling her to a Saudi fighter. The fighter bought her as a slave and wanted to raise her daughter as his own, as he did not have any children. He offered Madiha her freedom if she gave him her daughter, which she refused. Just before he took both of them to Saudi Arabia, Madiha managed to escape. Some girls mentioned the buyer gets a guarantee with the sale. If the girl will not agree to sex, he can bring her back. Although that appears to have happened, it was more profitable to sell her to someone else, making some money at the same time. “The girls now are seen as trade for ISIS,” Ghanim said. “One of the girls told me she asked the men holding her why they did not kill them if they hated them so much, and she got the reply that they meant money for them.” An unknown number of women have been sold abroad, to Tunisia, Saudi-Arabia and other Gulf States. Whether the selling still goes on there is not known, as contact is no longer possible. To get the Yezidi women and girls released, money is reportedly paid. A Kurdish government official told the Turkish press the Kurdistan Regional Government is actively buying Yezidis back from ISIS. “There are still around 3,500 Yazidis held as sex slaves and hostages by ISIS. We are trying to work out ways to save them,” Hadi Doubani, of the General Directorate of Yazidi Affairs in Duhok, told the Daily Hürriyet. “There are some Sunni Arabs in the ISIS-controlled areas who are cooperating with us. We pay money for the kidnapped girls who ISIS sell and these people buy them for us.” The amount of money the officials pay ranges from between $1,000 and $10,000 dollars, he said. “They sell women in the slave markets, some ISIS militants buy a girl for $50 and sell her back to us for $2,000-$2,500 dollars. They have almost turned the whole thing into a trade. They ask for more money for the youngest girls,” he added. His words were contradicted by the head of the Department of Coordination and Follow-up of the KRG in Erbil, Noori Abdulrahman Osman, who said “It is forbidden to deal directly with ISIS. We only deal through Sunni tribes in the area, never directly. And if we pay, it is for transporting the Yezidis back to Kurdistan.” He also denied that KRG has paid for the group of 261 Yezidis that was released recently by ISIS. Aid workers like Ghanim are convinced a payment was made. “We know of everybody who escapes or is released, as we have to arrange that they are let through by the Peshmerga that guard the borders between us and ISIS,” Osman said. Still, Ghanim maintains that some families may pay for the girls’ release. Sometimes they find ways through a mediator to buy them. At the same time, NGOs might find someone to help them escape after the women have managed to make contact from captivity. “Even the mediators are making money,” said Ghanim. “For instance, if I know someone in Tal Afar, who might know someone inside ISIS, then ISIS guys may offer 10 family members for $20,000 dollars. The mediator might tell me that he is asking $25,000 dollars, putting $5,000 in his own pocket.” Women who escape and find refuge with a family are also sometimes asked for money. You cannot blame the families, said Ghanim, explaining that if they get caught they will be punished. “Those who are making the contact with ISIS, are in danger. They only work through the one person they know and trust, because ISIS has killed these people before when they were found out.” Not just Yezidis are considered items of trade, the same goes for Christians who were kidnapped from Syria. The Assyrian Church in Australia has reported that ISIS has asked for $23 million for the release of 230 Assyrians it captured in February in Hasake province, roughly $100,000 per person.
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