Systemic rape of Yazidi women and girls has become enmeshed in terror group’s theology. In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State
fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a
sin. Because the pre-teen girl practised a religion other than Islam,
the Koran not only gave him the right to rape her – it condoned and
encouraged it, he insisted.
He bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt
beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of
her. When it was over, he knelt to pray again, bookending the rape with
acts of religious devotion. “I kept telling him it hurts – please
stop,” said the girl, whose body is so small an adult could circle her
waist with two hands.
