Iraq's Yazidi women must abandon kids born in IS captivity

Yazidi women and girls enslaved and raped by Islamic State militants have few choices. They may have been freed, but they can’t bring home the children they had with the extremists.

An 18-year old woman tells The Associated Press, on condition her name be withheld because of social stigma, that she pleaded with her rapist not to have any children, but he still made her have three. Another woman, now 20, said she was forced to abandon her child before returning home.

Five years ago Saturday, IS militants stormed Yazidi villages in northern Iraq, kidnapping, enslaving and massacring thousands.

In a controversial decision in April, Yazidi religious leaders, apparently to protect the traumatized, insular community, decreed they won’t embrace the children of IS, only those born to two Yazidi parents.