‘Sexual violence against women used by ISIS to lure recruits’

Sexual violence against women served as a means of ‘attracting, retaining, mobilizing and rewarding fighters’, according to a report by the Henry Jackson society.

The same report also found that groups including ISIS are being funded by human trafficking, modern-day slavery and sexual violence rather than through traditional methods such as oil sales.

The report’s author Nikita Malik called on the international community to recognize the links between these issues and terrorism.

‘Illicit economies complicate efforts to protect the victims of human trafficking and prosecute perpetrators of violence under international law. In the UK, ‎laws including the Modern Slavery and Terrorism Acts must now be interpreted more broadly in order to reflect the spectrum of crimes committed by individuals using sexual violence as a tactic of terrorism,’ she added.

The Trafficking Terror report outlined that terror groups are using ordinary criminal tactics including money laundering, migrant smuggling, drug and firearms trafficking, and human trafficking to finance operations.

Meanwhile, sexual slavery and human trafficking markets are common earners for Jihadists in ISIS-controlled territory in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

In fact, financial gain is a prime objective of sex trafficking and slavery for the terrorist group.

Revenue from ransom payments offered following sexual violence threats is another form of revenue for the group.

Meanwhile, modern slavery also provides cash to terrorist organizations through the sale and re-sale of human bodies, with reports indicating that kidnapping represents $10-30 million of revenue to ISIS in 2016.

Chair of the U.K. Home Affairs Select Committee, Yvette Cooper said that the relationship between sexual violence, human trafficking and terrorism must be fully understood.

‘ISIL, Boko Haram, and other evil groups are increasingly seeing human trafficking as a possible revenue stream – and we know that terrorists use sexual violence as one of the weapons they use to divide and create fear within communities. It is important this is recognized in the interpretation of terror in our current laws,’ she added, using an alternative name for ISIS.

Meanwhile, an analysis of ISIS members from Europe and the US found that many had a history of domestic and sexual violence.

The report said that evidence existed to indicate a potential correlation between the two. 

U.K. Jihadist Ondogo Ahmed was jailed for eight years for raping in the UK but fled to Syria while out of prison on license in 2013.

Meanwhile, Siddhartha Dhar, a fellow Londoner, has been described as a key player in Isis’s brutal persecution of the Yazidis, a religious minority whose followers the group permitted its members to rape.

One of the men involved in the London Bridge attack in July, Rachid Redouane, was reportedly abusive and controlling towards his partner. 

While the Westminster attacker Khalid Masood is another who has been described as violent and controlling towards his former wife.

Source: Albawaba