What makes her worth that price?
IS “fighters” are now apparently selling sex slaves on Facebook. As one does.
The woman is young, perhaps 18, with olive skin and dark bangs that droop onto her face. In the Facebook photo, she attempts to smile but doesn’t look at her photographer.
The caption mentions a single biographical fact: She is for sale.
“To all the bros thinking about buying a slave, this one is $8,000,” begins the May 20 Facebook posting, which was attributed to an Islamic State fighter who calls himself Abu Assad Almani. The same man posted a second image a few hours later, this one a pale young face with weepy red eyes.
“Another sabiyah [slave], also about $8,000,” the posting reads. “Yay, or nay?”
Facebook took the photos down within hours (within minutes would have been better) and it’s not clear whether the posts were marketing or commentary.
As the terrorist group comes under heightened pressure in Iraq and Syria, these female captives appear to be suffering, too — sold and traded by cash-strapped fighters, subjected to shortages of food and medicine, and put at risk daily by military strikes, according to terrorism experts and human rights groups.
You don’t say. There we were thinking they were living a life of luxury, doing voluntary “sex work” among the theocrats.
Social-media sites used by Islamic State fighters in recent months have included numerous accounts of the buying and selling of sex slaves, as well the promulgation of formal rules for dealing with them. The guidelines cover such topics as whether it’s possible to have sex with prepubescent prisoners — yes, the Islamic State’s legal experts say — and how severely a slave can be beaten.
Allah is merciful.
In displaying the images of the women, Almani advised his Facebook friends to “get married” and “come to dawlah,” or the Islamic State’s territory in Iraq and Syria. Then he engaged with different commenters in an extensive discussion about whether the $8,000 asking price was a good value. Some who replied to the postings mocked the women’s looks, while others scolded Almani for posting photos of women who weren’t wearing the veil.
“What makes her worth that price? Does she have an exceptional skill?” one of his correspondents asks about woman in the second photo.
Right? How much is a hole really worth, when you think about it? The hole should at least be able to make a great dinner out of minimal ingredients.
The Facebook incident comes amid complaints from human rights groups about waning public interest in the plight of women held as prisoners by the Islamic State. The organization Human Rights Watch, citing estimates by Kurdish officials in Iraq and Syria, says the terrorist group holds about 1,800 women and girls, just from the capture of Yazidi towns in the region. After initial denials, the Islamic State last year issued statements acknowledging the use of sex slaves and defending the practice as consistent with ancient Islamic traditions, provided that the women are non-Muslims captured in battle or members of Muslim sects that the terrorist group regards as apostates.
Of course. One is decent only to one’s own tribe; everyone else one is free to persecute. That’s the height of religious virtue.
And hey, we’ll take her owner’s word about what religious sect she’s with, right? Wouldn’t want to ruin a good deal by finding out she’s actually an orphan from our side.