A Yazidi teenager sold into slavery by Islamic State

8-18-2018    A Yazidi teenager sold into slavery by Islamic State has told the BBC of her horror after she escaped to Germany, only to come face-to-face with her captor in the street.  Ashwaq was only 14 when Islamic State fighters stormed into northern Iraq, including the heartland of the Yazidi people.  They took thousands of women as sex slaves, including Ashwaq—sold for $100 to a man named Abu Humam.  Raped and beaten, she managed to escape three months later and then went to Germany with her mother and one brother.  A few months ago, on the street outside a supermarket, she heard someone call out her name.

Ashwaq told the BBC:  "On the way back to school a car pulled up next to me.  He was sitting in the front seat.  He talked to me in German and asked:  'Are you Ashwaq?'  I was so scared I was shaking.  I said:  'No, who are you?’"  She said he then replied:  "I know you are Ashwaq, and I am Abu Humam."

Ashwaq said he then started to talk to her in Arabic and told her not to lie to him.  "I know you, he said.  And where you live and who you live with.  He knew everything about my life in Germany."

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Back in Kurdistan now living in a Yazidi camp, Ashwaq still wants to continue her education but both she and her family also want to leave the country.  "We're scared of the people of IS," her father told the BBC.  But her experience in Germany has had a profound impact on Ashwaq.  "If the world was destroyed, I would not go to Germany again," she said.  Like many Yazidis, her family is now applying to live in Australia as part of a special programme for women abducted by IS.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45209868

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Yazidi activist: My escape from Islamic State

2-29-2016     Sarah Montague speaks to Yazidi rights activist Nadia Murad.

When extremists from the so-called Islamic State entered Nadia's village, they killed all the men: six of her brothers were murdered. She and hundreds of other Yazidi women were taken captive and, in the months that followed, they were passed from one group of men to another and gang raped.

She managed to escape, but it is thought that thousands of women are still being held captive. Nadia Murad was in London to highlight their plight.   https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-35687900/yazidi-activist-my-escape-from-islamic-state