In recent months the public have been increasingly exposed to reports of the brutal tactics used by Islamic State in carrying out barbaric executions and inducing terror.
Beheadings are now commonplace and each new atrocity they commit and publicise manages to take the depravity of their movement to new levels. But the women and young girls that are taken captive by IS face a different sort of torture, not given the same public profile by their captors.
Organised rape
‘ISIS forces have committed organised rape, sexual assault and other horrific crimes against Yazidi women and girls’, said Liesl Gerntholtz, women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch in a report published on 15 April, and ‘those fortunate enough to have escaped need to be treated for the unimaginable trauma they endured’.
