DOHUK, IRAQI KURDISTAN - Seeham Haji Khudayda, a 22-year-old Yazidi woman from northern Sinjar, was sold seven times during her ISIS captivity. Like chattel, she was passed from one ISIS fighter to the next. She was raped almost daily. Sometimes she was gang raped by her owner’s guards. But of all the abuses she endured, what outraged her the most was the women who were complicit in it -- and who participated directly in her rape.
In addition to being raped, captured Yazidi women were forced to work as domestic servants for ISIS families. The wives and children of ISIS fighters would often participate in verbally and physically abusing Yazidis, according to accounts from survivors I spoke to in Dohuk. For Seeham and at least one other Yazidi survivor I spoke with who asked not to be named, the complicity went even further.
