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ISIS Tightens Grip on Yazidi Sex Slaves

  • Amanda Casanova

    Amanda Casanova is a writer living in Dallas, Texas. She has covered news for ChristianHeadlines.com since 2014. She has also contributed to The Houston Chronicle, U.S. News and World Report and…

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  • Updated Jul 06, 2016

ISIS is reportedly clamping down on its 3,000 estimated women and girls held captive as sex slaves.

According to Fox News, ISIS sells the women and girls on smartphone apps and maintains databases on their photographs and information to prevent any escapes.

Any smugglers who try to rescue the captives are assassinated.

Thousands of Yazidi women and children were taken captive in August 2014 when ISIS fighters overran villages in northern Iraq. Smugglers freed some 134 people a month. However, in May, as ISIS tightened its grip on its women and children captives, smugglers could only rescue 39 people in the last six weeks, according to a report from the Kurdistan regional government.

"They register every slave, every person under their owner, and therefore if she escapes, every Daesh control or checkpoint, or security force - they know that this girl ... has escaped from this owner," said Mirza Danai, founder of the German-Iraqi aid organization Luftbrucke Irak.

In one instance, Lamiyq Aji Bashar tried to escape four times before finally getting away in March. A land mine exploded as she ran across government-controlled territory. Two other slaves she was trying to escape with were killed. One was 20 and the other was 8. Bashar was left blind in her right eye by the explosion.

"I managed in the end, thanks to God, I managed to get away from those infidels," the 18-year-told the AP. "Even if I had lost both eyes, it would have been worth it, because I have survived them." 

Publication date: July 6, 2016