March 8th was a special day for women everywhere, as it marked the 2016 International Women's Day. The International Women's Day organization describes their event as “a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.”
While I saw many people around me celebrating by posting pictures of their favorite women in their lives on social media sites and calling for equal salaries and reproductive rights, around the world, we sometimes forget that women in other countries have significantly fewer freedoms than we do.
In Iraq, women in sex slavery by ISIS are now being forced to take birth control so they do not become pregnant while being abused. ISIS captors have recently been providing women with both oral and injectable contraceptives, sometimes both, in hopes that the slaves will be able to be used longer. Because of this, only about five percent of ISIS's sex slaves were found to be pregnant, as opposed to a normal 50 percent.
The utilization of contraceptives for sex slaves can be considered both good and bad for the women in captivity. The birth control keeps the women from ovulating, thus protecting them from enduring nine months of dangerous and difficult pregnancy just to have their attacker's babies; but in the Islamic State, it is also legal to rape a woman or girl as long as they do not have a child. In The New York Times, it is noted that “according to an obscure ruling in Islamic law cited by the Islamic State, a man must ensure that the woman he enslaves is free of child before having intercourse with her.” Because the women and girls are forced to use birth control, they are able to be raped for longer than those women who are impregnated by their rapists.
It is a “Catch-22.” Be raped and sold repeatedly, or have an unwanted child.
However, in the spirit of International Women's Day, we can also shed light on the women who are fighting back against the assaulting jihadists.
"The Force of the Sun Ladies” is a group of former sex slaves incarcerated by ISIS who have now banded together to form an all-women army. Their number one target? The men who raped and brutally tortured them: ISIS.
The Sun Ladies are about 2,000 women strong, all escaped sex slaves and are mostly Yazidi women. They train and are located in northwest Iraq, close to Mount Sinjar. A large majority of the women have never had any military training before, but they are dedicated to learning and trying to make their country safer for men and women everywhere, free from ISIS.
In Mirror, a British website, it was stated that one Sun Lady who gave birth to a son while in captivity was forbidden to feed her child. “When her baby cried out in hunger,” it says, “the woman’s captor beheaded him.” It is atrocities like this that made the Sun Ladies want to keep other women from going through the same experiences. As of now, the United Nations believes there are still about 3,500 men and women enslaved by ISIS. Hopefully with the help of the courageous Sun Ladies, many of the people will escape.
When asked in an interview with Fox News about the driving force behind the army, Captain Khatoon Khider of the Sun Ladies said, “ Whenever
In America, we may take advantage of International Women's Day as a time to only reflect on the wonderful women around us, but really, it means something more. For the women and girls who are sex slaves of ISIS, and the former slaves now making up The Force of the Sun Ladies, International Women's Day is a call for equality and freedom. It is meant to motivate women and men everywhere to fight back, and help women rise to the top, where they belong.
