When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August, the Western world watched in horror as a nation that had enjoyed relative freedom as compared to the manner in which the terror group previously governed would be set yet again to dive into a brutal subjugation of women and girls under the constrains of Sharia Law.
Women and girls living under strict Islamic law, whether at the hands of organized governments or militant ISIS warlords, are at particular risk of violence and oppression, through violence, sexual assault, kidnapping, and forced marriages and conversions.
All the more so Christian women and girls, which International Christian Concern say are at extreme risk in the extremist Muslim world, particularly in the Middle East.
A new report from the organization Aid to the Church in Need, “Hear Her Cries: the kidnapping, forced conversion and sexual victimization of Christian women and girls,” examines this horrific global phenomenon, as International Christian Concern recently reported.
It looks at the era in which ISIS dominated large swaths of land in the Middle East, during which time it enslaved thousands of women, including many Christian women.
ISIS captives were often kept as sex slaves, often beaten and even killed, as well as forced into accepting Islam by threat of violence.
These women are now often in need, ICC notes.
“Christian women, namely in Iraq and Syria though also seen in Lebanon and Jordan, suffered from forced conversion, forced marriages, torture and rape,” they explain. “Even for those who survived the ISIS violence, their trauma is not over. Christian female survivors must live with the consequences of the actions committed against them.”
One means of reparation is the Yazidi Survivors Law in Iraq to aid the survivors of the Daesh massacre, in which possibly thousands of men were killed as boys were kidnapped to train as soldiers and women were made into sex slaves and forced into marriage.
Forbes reported in March, when the legislation passed, that as many as 3,000 women remain missing.
The bill establishes aid for women kidnapped and terrorized by the Daesh terror group, including those forced into marriage, conversion, impregnated by rape, or forced into abortion.
However, ICC notes, it does not include aid for children born to women who were impregnated by sexual assault at Daesh’s hands.
“Christian women live as minorities in the Middle East, facing varying ranges of persecution. The kidnapping and sexual victimization of Christians is not over merely because of the defeat of the Islamic State,” the aid organization also adds. “Strong tribal ties in certain regions of the Middle East subject women to persecution for conversions to Christianity.”
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