Rashid Taha / Reuters
The case of “Tareq” and “Nafeed” is just one of several cases of children forced to convert to Islam or pay a cash sum, usually much higher than what they were able to earn as laborers in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). In Iraq, UNICEF reported in 2011 that girls were frequently lured over to the Islamic State (ISIS) by male relatives in order to be married. The girl, who had been kidnapped, was forced.
The UNICEF report, which was released on Monday, said there were cases where girls were forced to convert, marry, or take sexual relations with members of the religious police or men suspected of having sexual relations with minors under the age of 18.
On Tuesday, Iraqi authorities said they were in “full control” of the Mosul dam in the fight against ISIS. The Baghdad electricity authority said it had cut off power to a village, leaving some 100,000 households without any income.
But the city’s population of 1.8 million has been forced to run out of basic food supplies, while some have been unable to find work, according to UNICEF. In Iraq’s third biggest city, just one-tenth of the population received enough money from the state to cover their basic needs, the report estimated.
Another report by UNICEF on “reconciliation measures” implemented to address the challenges faced by children and their families faced ISIS-imposed restrictions, as well as the difficulties of rebuilding a home after an airstrike, among other concerns, but did not take into account ISIS’s persecution of Christians.
“The fact that there has not been an increase in child slavery and forced conversion of girls has been reported more than anywhere else because of the extremely limited means at the disposal of Daesh to forcibly forcibly recruit children into its forces,” said Christian Rolff of the Christian Solidarity Worldwide. ISIS also “frequented the areas of Mosul and Raqqa with children, as the children were their fighters and also for economic gain.”
In Turkey, many children have been kidnapped from schools to work at ISIS-run brothels. There has been no official confirmation that child abductions have increased in the past three months. However, a Turkish government official told a private news outlet, Hurriyet, that the “ISIS-affiliated terrorist organizations” had recently kidnapped children to