Slavery in 21st-century Islamism

Quasi-state-level Islamist groups, including Boko Haram and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, have captured and enslaved women and children, often for sexual slavery. In 2014, both groups were reported to have kidnapped large numbers of girls and younger women.

Apparently the first report of slave-taking by Boko Haram was on 13 May 2013 when a video was released of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau saying his group had taken women and children - including teenage girls - hostage in response to the arrest of its members' wives and children.

According to Islamism expert Jonathan N.C. Hill, Boko Haram began kidnapping large numbers of girls and young women for sexual use in 2014. The attacks echoed kidnappings of girls and young women for sexual use by Algerian Islamists in the 1990s and early 2000s, and may reflect influence by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

According to a community leader from Borno state quoted by the BBC, some captured young women and teenage girls held by Boko Haram have been forced to marry one Boko Haram fighter after another as the fighters are killed. "Any time they go for an operation and one of the fighters is killed they will force the young woman to marry another one ... Eventually she becomes a habitual sex slave."

The Economist reports that ISIS (also called "Islamic State") has taken "as many as 2,000 women and children" captive, selling and distributing them as sexual slaves. Matthew Barber, a scholar of Yazidi history at the University of Chicago, later stated to have compiled a list of 4,800 captured Yazidi women and children, and estimated that the overall number could be up to 7,000. Yazidi are a small minority who practice a religion based on "a mix of Christian, Islamic, and ancient Mesopotamian beliefs".

According to reports endorsed as credible by The Daily Telegraph, virgins among the captured women were selected and given to commanders as sexual slaves. According to an August 2015 story in The New York Times "The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them."

...
Wikipedia