US report: ISIS still kidnapping and selling women

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Islamic State militants continue to kidnap thousands of women and girls from a wide range of ethnic and religious groups and sell them to ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria where they are subjected to forced marriage, sexual slavery, rape, and domestic servitude, according to a new human trafficking report from the US State Department. 

The annual US Trafficking in Persons Report, which was released July 27, put a significant focus on the atrocities suffered over the past year by the Kurdish Yezidi community. The report found that a large number of Yezidi women and children are being trafficked by the Islamic State organization and many are still in ISIS captivity. 

The report's section on Iraq, which was designated a Tier 2 country, said that women and girls who have escaped ISIS captivity are suffering psychologically because many were physically exploited, impregnated and trafficked and now live with crippling emotional scars.

"Women and girls who escape ISIL captivity and become displaced in the country remain vulnerable to various forms of exploitation, including re-trafficking. ISIL also abducts and forcibly uses children in combat and support roles, including as human shields, informants, bomb makers, and suicide bombers; some of these children are as young as 8 years old and some are mentally disabled," the report reads, using a different name for ISIS.

The reports also criticized Iraqi and Kurdish officials for exploiting refugees and not doing enough to stop the problem. 

"[The Iraqi] government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials complicit in human trafficking, despite multiple reports of complicity. Judicial officials lacked understanding of the anti-trafficking law and failed to adequately implement it and protect victims during legal proceedings," the report said.  

In 2014, the KRG detained and charged 28 child trafficking victims; four victims were charged with prostitution and 24 were charged with begging, according to the report.  

Vian Dekhil, the only Yezidi woman in Iraqi parliament, described the 384-page US report as "very important." 

“[Trafficking] has not taken place in Iraq alone, but everywhere in the world. For us [Yezidis], it is the first time in history we are facing such a trauma and atrocity and there are still an enormous number of Yezidis suffering from ISIS savagery,” Dekhil told Rudaw. 

Dekhil estimated that thousands of Yezidi women and children are still under the control of ISIS. She said 1,900 Yezidis have escaped ISIS and returned to the Kurdistan region, including 750 children and 475 women.

“Those women who managed to escape from ISIS were helped by the KRG , but they need to be helped psychologically as well.”