Are ISIS fighters utilizing social media to sell sex slaves? Recent Facebook posts from alleged ISIS fighter Abu Assad Almani, which were quickly deleted, reportedly showed two young women with an asking price of $8,000. "To all the bros thinking about buying a slave, this one is $8,000," a post on May 20 reads, according to the Washington Post. Within a few hours, Almani reportedly posted another ad with similar wording. "Another sabiyah (slave), also about $8,000," the post reads. "Yay or nay?"
The Post adds that "whether the account's owner was doing the selling himself or commenting about women being sold by other fighters" is unclear, though the posts are indicative of a larger problem within the terrorist group. The photos were swiftly removed by Facebook officials, but not before being captured by the Washington nonprofit organization Middle East Media Research Institute.
Human rights groups across the world have widely criticized the lack of attention given to women imprisoned by ISIS fighters, with Newsweek's Skye Wheeler reporting in April that the UN currently estimates that as many as 3,500 people have been abducted. Furthermore, safe and legal abortions for women who have been raped by ISIS fighters are often not a possibility:
[Yazidi] women who have been raped by ISIS fighters and become pregnant cannot get a safe and legal abortion anywhere in Iraq. Iraqi and Kurdish laws should be changed to allow abortions, at least in the case of rape, and safe post-abortion care.
"The longer they are held by ISIS, the more horrific life becomes for Yazidi women, bought and sold, brutally raped, their children torn from them," Skye Wheeler, a Human Rights Watch researcher, told the Post. "Meanwhile, ISIS's restrictions on [non-enslaved] Sunni women cut them off from normal life and services almost entirely."
Facebook's community standards strictly prohibit terrorist or organized criminal activity of any kind. The social networking service also removes content that shows support for these groups, noting that posts "praising leaders" of these organizations are not allowed.
Facebook did not immediately respond to Complex's request for comment.
