Free the Slaves
23rd February 2016
In northern Iraq the threat posed by ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) has led to over 10,000 Kurdish women joining militias and training for combat. Most of these women are Sunni Moslems but in late 2015 Yazidi women who had been captured and raped by ISIL succeeded in getting support for a battalion of Yazidi women who had been sex slaves of ISIL and, obviously, escaped. Over 2,000 Yazidi slaves (most of them women) have escaped from ISIL so far. But the Yazidi women could not escape the experience.
The Middle East is one of those regions where female virginity is a big deal, sometimes a matter of life and death for women who lose it before marriage and then sometimes get murdered to salvage family honor. Getting captured and raped during war is not as bad but it does still stigmatize the victims. One way honor can be restored is via revenge. Taking up weapons and killing the culprit makes the woman less of a victim and more admirable. The Yazidis, who usually live among Kurds, are largely regard as Kurds but ones who have developed very different religious and social customs. Most Moslems consider the Yazidis heretics or pagans. The Kurds came to the aid of the Yazidi in 2014 when ISIL sought to kill or enslave all Yazidi in northern Iraq. The Kurds also helped arm and train Yazidi men to form more militias. By late 2015 this led to the appearance of the “Sun Ladies” (former sex slaves now armed, trained and seeking revenge) and now there are enough of them to form a separate battalion. ISIL is still holding at least 3,000 Yazidis captive and one objective of all these Yazidi militias (and Kurds in general) is to free the slaves.