UN Official: Women Victim of Systematic Sexual Violence by ISIL Terrorists in Syria, Iraq
NEW YORK- Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflicts Zainab Bangur has stressed that the terrorist groups in Syria are committing serious violations against women. Such violations include crimes of forced marriage, sex slavery, and sale for sex.
Bangur was briefing journalists on her “scoping mission” to the region which lasted from April 16 to 29 and took her to Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, where she met directly with women who escaped the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) captivity and survived sexual violence.
She pointed to instances of forced, temporary and early marriage and described how such practices were “encouraged” for terrorists as part of what they call “Jihad” and used as a “protection” mechanism for families with no other means of providing for or ensuring safety of young girls. She also noted the sale of women for sex, according to the UN website.
“Girls are literally being stripped naked and examined in slave bazaars,” she said, describing how they were categorized and shipped naked off to Raqqa or Mosul or other locations to be distributed among ISIL leaderers and fighters.
She listed examples of the horrors suffered by women, including one who had been temporarily married over 20 times, after each occasion forced to undergo surgery to repair her virginity.
“ISIL have institutionalized sexual violence and the brutalization of women as a central aspect of their ideology and operations, using it as a tactic of terrorism to advance their key strategic objectives,” she said, going on to describe how women were promised to fighters and how ISIL raised funds through trafficking, prostitution and ransoms.
Sexual violence was used to displace populations, to punish, humiliate and demoralize dissenters, to extract information for intelligence purposes and to dismantle social, familial and community structures in order to construct a new “Caliphate.”
The Special Representative said she had requested that the Security Council integrate protection and empowerment of women into its counter-terrorism response and she stated concerns about children born of rape, as they were unable to be registered. That risked creating “a generation of stateless children” who could provide fertile ground for future extremism.
H.M