Over the past three years, I have heard a lot of stories about other Yazidi women who were captured and enslaved by ISIS. For the most part, we were all victims of the same violence. We would be bought at the market, or given as a gift to a new recruit or a high-ranking commander, and then taken back to his home, where we would be raped and humiliated, most of us beaten as well. Then we would be sold or given as a gift again, and again raped and beaten, then sold or given to another militant, and raped and beaten by him, and sold or given, and raped and beaten, and it went this way for as long as we were desirable enough and not yet dead. If we tried to escape, we would be punished severely. As Hajji Salman had warned me, ISIS hung our photos at checkpoints, and residents in Mosul were instructed to return slaves to the nearest Islamic State centre. They were told there was a five-thousand-dollar reward if they did.
The rape was the worst part. It stripped us of our humanity and made thinking about the future바카라returning to Yazidi society, marrying, having children, being happy바카라impossible. We wished they would kill us instead.
ISIS knew how devastating it was for an unmarried Yazidi girl to convert to Islam and lose her virginity, and they used our worst fears바카라that our community and religious leaders wouldn바카라t welcome us back바카라against us. 바카라Try to escape, it doesn바카라t matter,바카라 Hajji Salman would tell me. 바카라Even if you make it home, your father or your uncle will kill you. You바카라re no longer a virgin, and you are Muslim!바카라
Women tell stories about how they fought against their attackers, how they tried to beat away the men who were much stronger than them. Although they could never have overpowered the militants who were determined to rape them, their fight allowed them to feel better after the fact. 바카라There바카라s not one time that we let them do it quietly,바카라 they say. 바카라I would resist, I would hit, I would spit on his face, I would do anything.바카라 I heard of one girl who penetrated herself with a bottle so that she would no longer be a virgin when her militant came for her, and others who tried to set themselves on fire. After they were free, they were able to say proudly that they scratched so hard at their captor바카라s arm that they drew blood, or they bruised his cheek while he was raping them. 바카라At least I didn바카라t let him do whatever he wanted,바카라 they would say, and every gesture, no matter how small, was a message to ISIS that they did not truly own them. Of course, it was the voices of the women who were not there, who had killed themselves rather than be raped, that spoke the loudest.
I have never admitted this to anyone, but I did not fight back when Hajji Salman or anyone else came to rape me. I just closed my eyes and wished for it to be over. People tell me all the time, 바카라Oh, you are so brave, you are so strong,바카라 and I hold my tongue, but I want to correct them and tell them that, while other girls punched and bit their attackers, I only cried. 바카라I am not brave like them,바카라 I want to say, but I worry what people would think of me. Sometimes it can feel like all that anyone is interested in when it comes to the genocide is the sexual abuse of Yazidi girls, and they want a story of a fight. I want to talk about everything바카라the murder of my brothers, the disappearance of my mother, the brainwashing of the boys바카라not just the rape. Or maybe I am still scared of what people will think. It took a long time before I accepted that just because I didn바카라t fight back the way some other girls did, it doesn바카라t mean I approved of what the men were doing.
Before ISIS came, I considered myself a brave and honest person. Whatever problems I had, whatever mistakes I made, I would confess them to my family. I told them, 바카라This is who I am,바카라 and I was ready to accept their reactions. As long as I was with my family, I could face anything. But without my family, captive in Mosul, I felt so lonely that I barely felt human. Something inside me died.
***
At Hajji Salman바카라s, I could barely stand to look at myself in the mirror. I put on some pink lipstick and eye makeup바카라just enough, I hoped, to avoid being beaten.
I looked in a mirror for the first time since leaving Kocho. Before, when I had put on makeup, I always felt that when I finished, I looked like another person, and I had loved that, the possibility of transforming. But that day at Hajji Salman바카라s, I didn바카라t feel that I looked any different. No matter how much lipstick I wore, the face in the mirror reflected exactly what I had been turned into바카라a slave who, at any moment, was going to be a prize for a terrorist. I sat down on the bed and waited for the door to open.
Forty minutes later, I heard the guards outside greet my captor, and then Hajji Salman came into the room. He wasn바카라t alone, but the men who were with him stayed in the hallway. As soon as I saw him, I collapsed, trying to shrink into a ball so that he couldn바카라t touch me, like a child.
바카라Salam alakum,바카라 Hajji Salman said to me, and looked me up and down. He seemed surprised that I had dressed up as he had asked. 바카라I had other sabaya who I had to sell after a few days,바카라 he said. 바카라They didn바카라t do what I asked them. You did a good job,바카라 he said approvingly, and then he left and closed the door behind him, leaving me feeling exposed and ashamed.
It was early evening when the door opened again. This time Hossam peered into the room. 바카라Hajji Salman wants you to bring tea to the guests,바카라 he said. 바카라How many are there? Who are they?바카라 I didn바카라t want to leave the room dressed as I was, but Hossam refused to answer. 바카라Just come,바카라 he said. 바카라And hurry, the men are waiting.바카라
For a moment, I had hope that the rape wasn바카라t going to happen that night. He바카라s just going to give me to one of these men, I said to myself, and I walked downstairs to the kitchen.
One of the guards had prepared the tea, pouring the strong reddish-brown liquid into small glass cups and arranging them around a dish of white sugar, and left it on a tray on the stairs. I picked up the tray and brought it into the living room, where a group of militants sat on plush couches. 바카라Salam alakum,바카라 I said as I entered, then walked around the room, placing teacups on small tables set up by the men바카라s knees. I could hear them laughing and speaking a distinctly Syrian Arabic, but I couldn바카라t pay attention to what they were saying. My hand shook as I served the tea. I could feel them looking at my bare shoulders and legs. The accent in particular scared me. I was still sure that at some point they would take me out of Iraq.
(Excerpted with permission from The Last Girl by Nadia Murad)
