Iraqi woman kills ISIS commander who forced her into sex slavery

7 Sep, 2015 16:09 / Updated 9 years ago

An Iraqi woman has taken revenge on the Islamic State commander who forced her into sex slavery, killing him near the city of Mosul.

The woman killed a senior commander known as “Abu Anas” three months after he forced her to marry several men under his command, Kurdistan Democratic Party spokesman Saeed Mamouzini told al-Sumaria TV.

The commander was killed on Saturday in the Tal Roman district, west of militant-held Mosul, according to Mamouzini.

There is no information on how the militant was killed or what has become of the woman, who some reports say is a member of the Yazidi-Kurdish minority.

According to the ABNA news agency, the report emerged just days after an unspecified number of "non-Iraqi" women were transported into Mosul for use as sex slaves, under a direct order from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

This is not the first incident of women fighting back against Islamic State. In August, IS militants reportedly executed 15 women at Ghazlani military base near Mosul, after the victims refused to marry the terrorists. Another 19 women in Mosul were executed for the same reason in July.

Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, has been under IS control since June 2014. The militant group has established several sex slave markets, where captured Yazidi, Christian, and Shia women are sold.

Women are often stripped naked before being sold to the highest bidders.

In one incident, revealed by United Nations official special envoy Zainab Bangur, IS militants forced a Yazidi woman to 'repair' her hymen 20 times in order to restore her virginity before she was married off to fighters.

Last month, the UN confirmed an Islamic State sex price list, which is offered to fighters and other men trying to purchase sex slaves – some as young as one.

Children aged one to nine can be purchased for about US$165, while adolescent girls cost $124. A woman over 20 is even less, and someone over the age of 40 can be sold for as little as $41.

In June, IS held a Koran memorizing contest with a grand prize of sex slaves.

According to a pamphlet released by Islamic State at the end of last year, militants are allowed to have sex with Yazidi women, especially if those captured are virgins. If the woman is not a virgin, the manual says, “her uterus must be purified" before intercourse.

Frustrated that governments aren't doing enough to help women and girls forced into sex slavery, one Canadian man has launched an organization aimed at returning victims to their loved ones.

“Let's save them while we can. This is my message,” Steve Maman, of the Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq (CYCI), said during a live RT broadcast late last month.

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