Former Sex Slave Impregnated By ISIS Rapist Names Her Baby Boy 'Jesus'
A former sex slave who got impregnated by Islamic State (ISIS) rapists named the boy she gave birth to as "Issa"—the Arabic name for Jesus.
Nihad Barakat al-Awsi was just 15 years old when she was kidnapped by ISIS militants in her home town of Sinjar in northwest Iraq in 2014, becoming one of the Yazidis who were turned into sex slaves by the brutal terrorist group, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Speaking to the Australian news outlet, Nihad confessed that she was tortured for weeks and raped many times by the militants who took her to Syria and then to Mosul, Iraq.
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After multiple rapes, she became pregnant.
"I thought I was carrying a small IS man," she told the Herald.
Nihad said she tried to get rid of the child she was carrying by inducing a miscarriage, but failed.
She eventually gave birth to the boy and named him "Issa."
She admitted that she had mixed feelings for the boy. "He is part of me, but he's something from those criminals and he represents those criminals," she said.
"I used to carry him and I used to hug him and play with him, but I have never forgot my family and I was thinking all the time about returning to my family," she added.
When Issa was just three months old, Nihad found the opportunity to escape. But she was forced to leave her son behind.
Nihad was eventually rescued by Steve Maman from The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq (CYCI), who helped in resettling her to Australia.
She said she could not help but think of the boy she left behind. Even if she had been able to take Issa with her, she said her people would have rejected him.
"Even if I managed to meet him again, my family and all the Yazidi people would say 'This is a member of ISIS'," she said.
Now 18, Nihad said she wants to tell the world about what she endured under ISIS captivity. "I want all the people to imagine the misery that we have passed through," she said.
Although she is on the road to recovery from her nightmarish ordeal, she doubts she will ever be the same again: "The sadness inside [me] is so deep," she said.
Nihad is just one of thousands of Christian and Yazidi women who were tortured and turned into sex slaves by ISIS militants.
Raping even young women is deemed "permissible" by the terrorist group, which cites Islamic laws to justify such act. An official edict circulated by ISIS even gives instructions to its fighters to rape a female slave "immediately after taking possession of her," The Independent reported. The document even says that it is "permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn't reached puberty if she is fit for intercourse."
