Sex slaves were subjected to virginity tests and forced abortions by IS

Three girls who were kidnapped by IS told their stories to reporters after escaping.

After kidnapping hundreds of women and young girls in Sinjar province, Iraq, last August, the Islamic State group (IS) imprisoned them in a slave market for male customers to buy for their gratification.

Bushra, 21, once witnessed two doctors checking to see if the girls were pregnant.

`A friend of mine was three months pregnant. They took her into a room with two doctors and they performed an abortion. When they brought her home, I asked what happened and they did it.`

The abortion caused Bushra’s friend to bleed so much and be in so much pain that she couldn’t talk or walk normally.

`She was the first. Later, they captured many pregnant women and took them to a separate house,` Bushra said.

Bushra along with Noor and Munira were kidnapped when IS attacked their village.

Bushra had a good life until rebels appeared in Sinjar, taking her to a completely strange place.

`They told us, ‘Forget your family. Forget that you are Yazidis, you are Muslims now. We will marry you. Each fighter will own one of you.

The girls had to stand in line for them to check before choosing the person they wanted to be their wife.

`One guy chose me. He was old, fat and ugly. I was very scared. There were some other IS fighters and I begged one of them. ‘Please choose me. Take me and finish me.

Noor was not forced to have sex with that person immediately.

He did that terrible thing to Noor before handing her over to his accomplices.

Find death

A woman fled Siba Sheikh Khidir, near Sinjar, when IS attacked and came to live in a refugee camp.

The Yazidi people, an ethnic minority in Iraq, believe that a god created the Earth and entrusted it to the care of peacock angels.

While imprisoned and waiting for her turn to be sold, Munira used a needle to pierce her flesh.

`I was once given as a prize to another IS rebel. Twice,` she said.

Traumatized by having to witness so many bad things, Bushra also took a bottle of medicine and swallowed the medicine inside, with the thought that it would be better to end this deadlocked life than become a sexual victim.

`I fainted but didn’t die. They took me to the hospital and at the hospital, I regained consciousness,` she said.

As soon as she woke up, they raped her again.

Bushra is not the only case of wanting to commit suicide.

`One day, there were 14 girls with me. They committed suicide by drinking rat poison, but the IS fighters took them to the hospital to have their intestines cleaned. They told us, ‘We won’t let you go.’

Noor, Munira and Bushra were finally lucky enough to escape from IS’s lair and reach the refugee camp.

However, hundreds of other Yazidi women are still in slavery.