ISIS releases “fatwa” on how and when to rape captured females

The Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) believes that thousands of Yazidi woman have already been sold into enslavement.

Isis has released a fatwa detailing how and when its fighters can rape female sex slaves – “one of the inevitable consequences of jihad”.

The document, drawn up by the terrorist group’s “Committee of Research and Fatwas”, was revealed by a news agency after being discovered among a huge trove of documents seized by US special forces in Syria.

It is one of many self-proclaimed rulings Isis has made to enforce its interpretation of Islamic law, with others governing the treatment of “infidels” and revenue streams from stolen oil and antiquities.

The fatwa on female slaves, which could not be independently verified, was apparently released in response to a question on unspecified “violations” by Isis fighters owning female slaves.

It lists 15 rulings, which go into explicit detail prohibiting intercourse if a slave is menstruating or is pregnant, and banning forced abortions.

Many of the injunctions deal with rape within families, or the “sharing” of a slave’s children.

“If the owner of a female captive, who has a daughter suitable for intercourse, has sexual relations with the latter, he is not permitted to have intercourse with her mother and she is permanently off limits to him,” one says.

Nadia Murad Basee Taha, from the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, told the UN Isis militants had kidnapped, raped and beaten her and her family

“Should he have intercourse with her mother then he is not permitted to have intercourse with her daughter and she is to be off limits to him.”

“Owners” are banned from raping two sisters at the same time, or passing slaves been father and son, or other relatives.

Anal sex is also specifically forbidden and the fatwa ordains that any slave who is made pregnant by her “owner” must be kept and freed after his death.

Militants are not allowed to sell slaves to anyone they know will mistreat them, the document says, adding: “The owner of a female captive should show compassion towards her, be kind to her, not humiliate her and not assign her work she is unable to perform.”

Isis has released previous documents attempting to justify its enslavement and rape of women since the kidnap of thousands of Yazidi women and girls in Iraq last year, managing the subject of slavery through its department of “war spoils”.

Some who managed to escape told Human Rights Watch how fighters separated young women and girls from their families and moved them “in an organised and methodical fashion to various places in Iraq and Syria” to be sold or given to militants to be repeatedly raped and abused.

The latest documents were obtained in May, during a raid when a man said to be one of Isis’ top financial officers, Abu Sayyaf, was killed.

A young Yazidi slave, who gave her name as Jalila, was freed during the operation.