Woman who claims she escaped from ISIS speaks out
Chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reports from Washington
An Iraqi Christian who escaped the ISIS stronghold of Mosul says she was "married and divorced" as many as nine times a night, all to give her tormentors a twisted justification for rape, according to an interview conducted by an advocacy group and reviewed by Fox News.
"They had me whenever they would desire it," the woman, whose name was withheld for her own protection, says in the interview with the nonprofit group In Defense of Christians (IDC). "Especially this one, Farouk, who was obsessed with me and he would say, 'I like the people of Jesus.'"
The rapes were preceded by phony marriage ceremonies that the Islamic radicals believed gave them permission to attack her, she said.
"What wedding?" said the woman, who appears to be in her thirties and is seen sobbing and shaking in parts of the interview. "For them it was a wedding, but what kind of wedding is this?"
The woman said her story is not uncommon, and that she wants it told so the world will act to protect Christians, said In Defense of Christians President Toufic Baaklini.
Click here for genocide report by Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians
"She asked for her story to be heard in the United States - that it is happening not only to her," said Baaklini. "It's happened to many, many Christians, Yazidis and Yazidi woman, and others."
In the interview, a tape and partial transcript of which were provided to Fox News, the woman recounts how her husband vanished after ISIS took control of Mosul in 2014. Baaklini said she left two older children in the care of neighbors, and along with her new baby, began searching for him.
"People were leaving, everyone was leaving, I mean, even the Muslims were leaving," she says. "But I didn't have anybody and I had hope in my husband and I said to myself, 'If I left, where would I go?'
"I had no idea where I would go to, so I stayed," she says.
ISIS fighters confronted her, and discovered a crucifix tattoo on her arm, she says. They took her and the baby to a school that had been converted into a slavery camp where she was repeatedly assaulted.
The U.S. decision earlier this year to officially designate the plight of Christians in Iraq as genocide is one step, the next should be the creation of a safe haven for them similar to the way the U.S. and NATO sought to protect Muslims in the 1990s during the Bosnian war, said Baaklini.
"They just want to live in peace and pray and be free, so the safe haven, a secured area would be the next step for us to help them go back to their homes," Baaklini said.
The advocacy group also provided what appeared to be an ISIS price list for slaves, where the highest prices were demanded for children between the ages of 1 and 9. The woman's claims about rape camps, and the slave price could not be independently confirmed but were reviewed by outside experts and judged to be consistent with the terror group's brutal tactics.
Referring to women and children as "Merchandise" and "Spoils of War," the document said the prices are mandatory and those who violate the "price controls will be executed ... It is not allowed for any customer to purchase more than 3 spoils, except for foreigners like Turks, Syrians and Gulf Arabs."
In additional to sexual exploitation, outside experts said ISIS also sells woman and children as house servants and for manual labor. IDC said the Iraqi Christian was able to escape because an ISIS fighter in the “school of death” was from her Mosul neighborhood, recognized her, and allowed her to slip away.
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