The Islamic State’s horrifying practice of sex slavery, explained

Violence against women is often cast in the history books as a side effect of war, the inevitable outcome when empires clash, cities fall and triumphant armies let loose on helpless civilians. But as a flurry of recent reports note, there’s nothing inadvertent about the Islamic State’s systematic enslavement and abuse of hundreds of captured women — rather, it’s embedded in the group’s worldview and strategic operations.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which monitors Islamist militant online activity, this week published a comprehensive analysis of the jihadists’ practice of sexual slavery, drawn from Islamic State communiques as well as the social media accounts of its members and supporters. It followed a searing expose by New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi detailing how the Islamic State has “enshrined” a “theology of rape.”

There is a well-organized system in place for the buying and selling of female slaves

Reports of the Islamic State capturing women and often forcing them to serve as the jihadists’ enslaved concubines began piling up last autumn after the militants overran villages in the shadow of Iraq’s Sinjar mountain. The region is home to the Yazidi sect, a largely Kurdish-speaking minority whose faith predates the advent of Islam and is considered apostate by fundamentalists.

Some of the Yazidis who couldn’t escape, particularly able-bodied men, were summarily executed. Others, particularly young women, were rounded up and carried away.

More than 5,000 Yazidi women were captured last year, and an estimated 3,144 are still being held by the militants, according to the Times. The testimony of those who eventually escaped — or had their freedom bought by relatives and friends — has provided a shocking window into the world of the Islamic State.

Callimachi charted the elaborate system the Islamic State put in place to transport, house and trade female slaves. It involves buses seized from the Iraqi government, large warehouses and office buildings as holding pens and a bureaucracy of courts and notaries that presides over contracts and deeds of sale.

Younger Yazidi girls fetch higher prices in the Islamic State slave markets. According to some accounts, those higher up in the organization’s command structure get first choice. But it’s clear the trade comprises a real wing of the Islamic State’s internal economy.

“The girls get peddled like barrels of petrol,” Zainab Bangura, the United Nations’ special representative on sexual violence and conflict, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “One girl can be sold and bought by five or six different men. Sometimes these fighters sell the girls back to their families for thousands of dollars of ransom.”