ISIS’s sex slaves pushed to suicide

Yazidi women and girls held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and forced into sexual slavery have committed suicide or attempted to, according to rights group Amnesty International.

Since June, ISIS militants have controled swathes of Iraq and Syria declaring a cross-border “caliphate.”

In early August, hundreds of Yazidi women and girls were captured by ISIS after they  overran their hometown of Sinjar . Hundreds were killed in the attack, and tens of thousands were either stranded in nearby Mount Sinjar or fled to Kurdish-held parts of northern Iraq.

The Yazidis are a centuries-old religious minority based in northern Iraq and Syria that follow a religion that predates Islam and Christianity but shares elements with Abrahamic religions.

They have suffered religious persecution for generations because of their beliefs, and have been accused of devil-worship, an accusation they deny.

Minority groups such as the Yazidis have been systematically targeted by ISIS in a campaign that Amnesty said has amounted to ethnic cleansing, murdering civilians and enslaving others for a fate that some captives consider even worse than death.

“Many of those held as sexual slaves are children -- girls aged 14, 15 or even younger,” Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser, said in a statement.

Amnesty said that many of the perpetrators are ISIS fighters, but may also include supporters of the group.

A 19-year-old named Jilan committed suicide out of fear she would be raped, Amnesty quoted her brother as saying.

A girl who was held with her but later escaped confirmed the account, saying: “One day we were given clothes that looked like dance costumes and were told to bathe and wear those clothes. Jilan killed herself in the bathroom.”

“She cut her wrists and hanged herself. She was very beautiful; I think she knew she was going to be taken away by a man and that is why she killed herself.”

Another former captive told the rights group that she and her sister tried to kill themselves to escape forced marriage, but were stopped from doing so.

“We tied... scarves around our necks and pulled away from each other as hard as we could, until I fainted... I could not speak for several days after that,” Wafa, 27, told the rights group.

Amnesty also recounted the story of 16-year-old Randa, who was abducted with her family and raped by a man twice her age.

“It is so painful what they did to me and to my family,” Randa said.

Rovera said: “The physical and psychological toll of the horrifying sexual violence these women have endured is catastrophic.

“Many of them have been tortured and treated as chattel. Even those who have managed to escape remain deeply traumatized.”