When Women’s Bodies Become Battlefields

As a Muslim, I have spent much of my life confronting uncomfortable truths.

One of the most uncomfortable is this: wherever Islamist extremism takes root, women are often among its first and most brutal victims.

This is not a coincidence.

It is not an unfortunate side effect of war.

Over the past decade, the world has watched ISIS enslave thousands of Yazidi women and girls. They were bought, sold, raped repeatedly, and traded like livestock. ISIS even published internal documents regulating the ownership and sale of female captives, attempting to cloak sexual slavery in religious language.

The world witnessed Hamas terrorists murder civilians on a scale unseen in Israel for generations. Subsequent investigations by the United Nations and independent experts found credible evidence that sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred during the attacks and against hostages in captivity.

These were not random crimes committed by undisciplined individuals.

They reflected an ideology that strips victims of their humanity.

In Sudan, armed groups have been accused of systematically using rape as a weapon of war. Women and girls have been abducted, assaulted, and terrorized to destroy families and communities.

In........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)