The list of crimes committed by ISIL got a little longer as the UN special envoy on sexual violence in the conflict, Zainab Bangura, said she was given a hard copy of a pamphlet outlining the cost for sex with slaves and infants, the most expensive in the list, during her trip in Iraq this April.
“The girls get peddled like barrels of petrol,” she told Bloomberg in an interview last week. “One girl can be sold and bought by five or six different men. Sometimes these fighters sell the girls back to their families for thousands of dollars of ransom.”
According to Bangura, the group first got their own slaves and then outsiders were allowed to bid thousands of dollars on those remained. Thereafter, prices in Iraqi dinars for children aged 1 to 9 reach $165 while teenagers cost $124 and women over 20 are sold for even less.
Protection of women/girls must be part of counter-terrorism response, SRSG Bangura tells Anti-#ISIS Coalition Meeting pic.twitter.com/ClHelrYu1h
— End Rape in War (@endrapeinwar) July 30, 2015
Bangura called on the UN some three months ago to take measures to counter the violence, citing concerns about children born of rape. These children, she warned, create a "generation of stateless children," which could in turn serve to exacerbate extremism in the region.
