Girls sold for 'as little as a pack of cigarettes' in ISIS controlled territories

Abducting girls has become a key part of the ISIS strategy to recruit foreign fighters who have been traveling to Iraq and Syria in record numbers over the past 18 months.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
ISIS Warns of new Attacks (photo credit: ARAB SOCIAL MEDIA)
ISIS Warns of new Attacks
(photo credit: ARAB SOCIAL MEDIA)
The UN envoy on sexual violence Zainab Bangura said on Monday that the terrorist group Islamic State is selling girls in territories it controls in Syria and Iraq sometimes "for as little as a pack of cigarettes," she told AFP in an interview.
Sexual violence and female sexual slavery is rampant across ISIS controlled areas, where ISIS combatants refresh their efforts of indenturing girls to sexual slavery once they overrun a territory.
"They kidnap and abduct women when they take areas so they have – I don't want to call it a fresh supply – but they have new girls," Bangura told AFP, adding, "This is a war that is being fought on the bodies of women."
Bangura related to AFP the ordeal some girls have faced after speaking to those who have escaped captivity and were living in refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
"Some were taken, locked up in a room – over 100 of them in a small house – stripped naked and washed," and were then forced to stand in front of men so they could asses "what (they) are worth," AFP quoted her as saying. 
Abducting girls has become a key part of the ISIS strategy to recruit foreign fighters who have been traveling to Iraq and Syria in record numbers over the past 18 months, AFP reported.
According to Bangura, "This is how they attract young men – we have women waiting for you, virgins that you can marry," adding "The foreign fighters are the backbone of the fighting."
AFP also cited a recent UN report as saying close to 25,000 foreign fighters from over 100 countries were involved in conflicts worldwide, with the largest influx by far into Syria and Iraq.