Things had been getting worse for women in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, [emphasis: mine] the rise of sectarian strife and fundamentalist Islam. But in the summer of 2014 came the biggest blow when ISIS enforced its extreme ideology in northern Iraq.
…Tales of rape and other horrific abuses of women had spread across Nineveh; of the capture and enslavement of non-Muslim women from Yazidi and Christian communities, acts that ISIS claims are justified in the Quran.
So Zainab, who is Muslim, was married off at 16 to save her from ISIS. Three months ago, she became pregnant. In the madness of escaping her ISIS-held town, she lost her baby. She says little about it except there was a lot of blood.
…But what happened to her is also an assault. She was a child still and robbed of her freedom, her life’s trajectory altered because of an ideology that does not value her worth as a woman. Early marriage for girls has emerged, sadly, as a coping mechanism under the militants.
…I ask about her journey from Mosul, why she fled in her condition. Her initial answer is wholly expected: “I was afraid for my daughter.”
She continues: “But I was afraid as much for my son. He would have been brainwashed by them and one day forced to join their ranks.”
…The prospect of a military victory over ISIS in Mosul offers glimmers of hope for a better future, but the women are unsure if life can ever be the same again.
How long, they ask, will it take to reverse the damage that has been done; to undo a perverse way of thinking that does not see women as human beings? How long before they can walk in the streets without constantly surveying their surroundings?
Fleeing ISIS’ assault on girls and women – CNN.com
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