Hear Her Cries

IRAQ AND SYRIA

A Daesh (ISIS) price list, showing the going rates for Yazidi and Christian women.

When Pope Francis travelled to Iraq in March 2021, a journalist on the papal Áight gave him a Daesh (ISIS) slave pricelist for Christian and Yazidi women .

The lowest price ― US$43 ― was for women between the age of 40 and 50. The most expensive ― US$172 ― was for girls aged between one and nine. 54 Under Daesh’s caliphate, the kidnapping, rape, forced marriage and conversion to Islam of Christian and Yazidi women became a commonplace occurrence. 55 Even with the military defeat of Daesh in Iraq in 2017 56 and their territorial defeat in Syria in 2019, 57 the effects of these atrocities are still felt today. Many women are still missing and those who have returned are reluctant to speak out, making it difÀcult to quantify how many were subjected to this crime. In Qaraqosh, a Christian town in northern Iraq on the Nineveh Plains, it is estimated that Daesh took between 45 and more than 100 Christian women when they seized the town in August 2014. By 2019, only seven of these women had returned to Qaraqosh. 58 Syriac Catholic Archbishop Semaan of Adiabene, which includes Qaraqosh, told ACN that the returned women were scared of being judged by the community and two or three returned women left Iraq for France. He said: “It became a social scandal. No one who I spoke to told me what they experienced under Daesh.” In neighbouring Syria, there are fears that in Idlib, a jihadist stronghold, Christian women are still suffering this abuse. Father Firas LutÀ, Custodian of the Province of Saint Paul for the Franciscans of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, told ACN: “I think this is still occurring, I think so. Unfortunately, Idlib is still occupied by different jihadist groups and I imagine it is still happening.”

He added: “This deÀnitely happened to one Christian woman. She was a teacher and was subjected to sexual violence and then they killed her. Several men abused her sexually, and then they killed her.” Father Firas highlighted the scale of the problem to ACN, saying: “Forced conversions would’ve happened to maybe more than hundreds of women. The jihadists controlled a huge area for years and years.” For now, the focus is on rehabilitating these women and consoling the family members whose wives, sisters, nieces and mothers have not been returned. It will take time for the scars to heal. The Christian women can only hope that widespread fears that Daesh ― or another militant group ― will return prove unfounded. 59

16 | HEAR HER CRIES