An Iraqi Christian woman has opened up about the horror perpetrated by ISIS, revealing that militants with the group married and divorced her nine times in order to rape her with "justification."
In a video interview shared by Fox News, the woman, who appears to be in her 30's, reveals that her husband disappeared after the terrorist group captured Mosul, Iraq's largest Christian city, in 2014.
"People were leaving, everyone was leaving, I mean, even the Muslims were leaving. But I didn't have anybody and I had hope in my husband and I said to myself, 'If I left, where would I go?' I had no idea where I would go to, so I stayed," says the woman, who was identified as a Christian by IS militants because of a cross tattoo on her arm.
The woman, who is seen crying and shaking in parts of the interview, reveals that she was routinely raped by fighters of Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL or Daesh. The rapes were preceded by marriage ceremonies that the Islamic radicals believed gave them permission to attack her, she said.
"They had me whenever they would desire it. Especially this one, Farouk, who was obsessed with me and he would say, 'I like the people of Jesus,'" the woman says.
"What wedding? For them it was a wedding, but what kind of wedding is this?" she asks.
The woman just one of thousands of Christian and Yazidi women in the Middle East who suffered at the hands of Islamic State militants who, under Islamic Law, are permitted to capture and forcibly make "heretical" women sexual slaves.
In its English propaganda publication, "Dabiq," ISIS sought to justify its treatment of females, saying it is permissible under early Islamic law to capture and forcibly make "heretical" women sexual slaves.
"Before Shaytan [Satan] reveals his doubts to the weak-minded and weak hearted, one should remember that enslaving the families of the kuffar [infidels] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shari'ah that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Qur'an and the narration of the Prophet ... and thereby apostatizing from Islam," the publication read.
In Defense of Christians President Toufic Baaklini told Fox News the woman asked for her story to be told to raise awareness in the United States.
"It's happened to many, many Christians, Yazidis and Yazidi woman, and others," he said.
In March, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry officially declared ISIS is committing "genocide" against Christians and other ancient minority groups in the region.
While the designation does not change U.S. policy, Mark Arabo, president of the California-based Minority Humanitarian Foundation, said it will raise international consciousness and morally compel lawmakers to pass legislation protecting Christians and other minorities.
"Congress, the President, and the State Department now have a moral obligation to act," Arabo told The Gospel Herald. It's not enough that they recognized the problem, they need to fix the problem. We hope and pray that the moral conscience of Congress is going to wake up, and God will open up their hearts and minds to the victims of genocide."
Arabo, who is the president of the California-based Minority Humanitarian Foundation, said the recognition also provides hope to those who are suffering for their faith.
"Christians are being massacred because of their faith," he said. "Their churches have been bombed, their houses have been taken away, their clothes have been stripped from them. They're left in the desert in camps, begging for someone to rescue them. They've lost everything they have because of ISIS, but they haven't lost their faith, they haven't lost their hope."
