The Islamic State has begun taking to selling captured women as sex slaves in an apparent desperate attempt to raise money for their operations. The women, some as young as 18, and perhaps even younger, had begun to appear on the organization’s Facebook page. Women are seen being encouraged to smile in their photos that are posted to the Facebook page but none are and all are looking dejected and beaten. The only captions seen with the photos are: She is for sale.
One comment by a seller read, “To all the bros thinking about buying a slave, this one is $8,000.”
One of the young women offered for sale at the Islamic State’s Fecebook page.
This had all happened beginning on May 20 but as soon as Facebook got wind of it, the company took the page down. The Islamic State hold about 2,000 Yazidi women and girls as slaves. The women, according to their beliefs and culture, are of little use to them other than as sex slaves. The United Nations was told in February that The Islamic State rapes and sells Yazidi females as young as nine years old.
Individual Islamic State soldiers may do whatever they want with the women and girls they hold captive and many are selling them in an effort to generate some cash as many of the units are nearly broke from the fighting. As the war in Syria and elsewhere in the region rages on, Islamic State soldiers are finding themselves needing to raise money for food, medicine and ammunition.
The Islamic State has captured and enslaved nearly two thousand Yazidii women and girls.
Over the past several months, the slave situation has become so dire that the Islamic State has issued protocols over its online sites to try and retain some sense of order. The protocols include guidelines about such things as how forcefully someone can beat a slave and what the protocols are regarding sex with children.
The group, and others like them, have always used social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to release propaganda and to recruit but authorities say this is the first time that such a group as the Islamic State has attempted to sell slaves through them.
PHOTO CREDITS: Pixabay / Reuters / The Washington Post