According to a recent report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, women and girls are being sold like property and imprisoned in houses where they are suffering brutal rapes and sexual assaults at the hands of ISIS fighters 

In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, the senators asked the Administration to work with international partners to document, disclose, and put an end to these horrific acts 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) today urged the Administration to address the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham’s (ISIS) campaign of systematic sexual assault and enslavement of women. According to a recent report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR), women and girls are being sold like property and imprisoned in houses where they are suffering brutal rapes and sexual assaults at the hands of ISIS fighters. In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, the senators asked the Administration to work with international partners to document, disclose, and put an end to these horrific acts.

“We recognize that the Department has taken steps to publicize ISIS atrocities through social media to help deter recruitment by the organization in Europe and the United States,” the senators wrote. “These efforts could be bolstered by including a greater emphasis on ISIS’s mass crimes against women and girls, including rape and trafficking for forced marriages. While drawing greater attention to these incidents, the State Department should also work wherever possible with human rights organizations to identify specific perpetrators in order to facilitate war crimes charges against them in the future.”

Full text of the senators’ letter is available below:

November 17, 2014

Dear Secretary Kerry:

We write to express our grave concern regarding reports of systematic sexual violence against and enslavement of  women and girls by members of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and to ask that you ensure the U.S. government—working with our international partners—undertakes every possible effort to document, disclose, and end these horrific acts.

According to a November 14, 2014 report released by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), “There are distressing accounts of fighters taking girls as young as 13 years old away from their families, resulting in violations of international humanitarian law and acts that amount to war crimes of cruel treatment, sexual violence and rape.” These are not isolated events, but rather part of a systematic ISIS campaign victimizing women and girls.  The UNHCR report reveals how women are being sold like property and being imprisoned in houses where they are “suffering rapes by multiple fighters returning from the battlefront.”

We appreciate your efforts to build an international coalition to reduce the areas under ISIS’s control, as well as to target ISIS’s financing, cut off its access to foreign recruits, and counter its propaganda. But in order to eventually bring members of ISIS to justice for their crimes against humanity and to undercut ISIS’s ridiculous claims to religious legitimacy, the U.S. should work with international partners to more assiduously record and highlight ISIS’s crimes against women and girls. 

We recognize that the Department has taken steps to publicize ISIS’s atrocities through social media to deter recruitment by the organization in Europe and the United States. These efforts could be bolstered by including a greater emphasis on ISIS’s mass crimes against women and girls, including rape and trafficking for forced marriages. While drawing greater attention to these incidents, the State Department should also work wherever possible with human rights organizations to identify specific perpetrators in order to facilitate war crimes charges against them in the future.

We stand ready to work with you to help protect women and girls in Syria and Iraq and to ensure that those who have perpetrated such crimes against them are defeated and brought to justice.  Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

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