Escaped Islamic State sex slave appointed UN goodwill envoy

UNITED NATIONS: A young Iraqi woman who survived rape and abuse as a sex slave of Islamic State fighters on Friday became a UN goodwill ambassador for the dignity

UNITED NATIONS: A young Iraqi woman who survived rape and abuse as a sex slave of Islamic State fighters on Friday became a UN goodwill ambassador for the dignity of survivors of human trafficking.

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Nadia Murad Basee Taha, a 23-year-old Yazidi woman, called for justice for the victims of the militant group and argued that the attack on the Yazidis should be recognised as a genocide.

Murad was taken from her home village of Kocho in August 2014 and brought to IS-controlled Mosul, where she was gang-raped, and bought and sold many times. “I was used in the way that they wanted to use me. I was not alone,” Murad said during a ceremony held at UN headquarters.

“Perhaps I was the lucky one. As time passed, I found a way to escape where thousands others could not. They are still captive.”

Her voice trembling, Murad called for the release of some 3,200 Yazidi women and girls still being held as sex slaves by IS fighters and for the captors to face justice.

“My real fear is that once ISIS is defeated, ISIS militants, ISIS terrorists will just shave off their beards and walk the streets of the cities as if nothing has happened,” she said.