“If ten fighters rape a woman, she’ll become a Muslim ». That is what Abou Bakr al-baghdadi proclaims, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant , also known as ISIS or Daesh. He incites his fighters to violence to against women “in the name of the religion”.
Indeed, the diverse attacks levied on women in wartime, and especially within ISIS, are not minor. Prohibitions are numerous and human rights non-existent. Communication, ability to move, freedom of expression; all these things which seem natural to us are prohibited by these factions. The women of Daesh live in fear, under armed threats and the physical, but mostly moral, perpetual harassment.
The recruitment of the women, often young and easily influenced, is mainly done on the Internet, via social networks, where they are manipulated and deceived by professionals. At first convinced by the ideologies of the latter and by the disenfranchisement they face from the West, they obtain a strong motivation. Then, they become aware of the macabre and inequitable decoration into which they have entered. Forced and forced, they find themselves prisoner of the infernal manipulation which is imposed on them until they die, in particular by using explosive belts during attacks, possibly programmed by their husbands. Indeed, in the eyes of these men, a woman has more value if she dies as a «martyr» than if she lives as a human, their role limited to reproduction in order to immortalize the future of the caliphate, or working with propaganda in order to attract new followers.
The end of this nightmare seems so unattainable for these exhausted, bruised and dehumanized women, who face a horrifying reality.

Noure NAHAS

Translated by Alexandre BEDO and Noure NAHAS