Tala Haikal: "It may not be possible to immediately free all the kidnapped girls and women due to the scope of the conflict with ISIS and the geographical dispersal of the captives in various locations. Some of these women and girls can be freed only once ISIS is destroyed."

Haikal is a Middle East analyst at the American Task Force on Palestine, a think tank in Washington, DC. She tweets @talamay.

"ISIS has kidnapped an estimated 4,000 Iraqi girls and women from Yazidi and other minority groups for the purpose of selling them to locals or donating them to loyal jihadists. Sadly this is not unique -- traces of sexual slavery are still evident in various parts of the world, despite legislation prohibiting it -- but these crimes are being committed on an extraordinary scale by ISIS. While these barbaric rapists are fulfilling their sexual perversions the world is silently watching. Instead, the international community must work to free the Iraqi women and bring accountability to the chronically neglected issue of the victimization of women in wars.

The kidnapped women and girls are generally separated into small groups. Their price varies between $25 and $1000. Some are as young as 12 years old.  ISIS has beheaded 17 of them. There have been at least 11 reported cases of suicide, according to an email response from the Human Rights Department at Iraq’s Foreign Ministry to this writer. As described by Liz Sly of the Washington Post, only a conversion to Islam can “upgrade” the status of these captives from prison inmates to “comfort wives.”"

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/civil-rights/219595-isis-and-sexual-slavery

ISIS and sexual slavery