Iraqi Couple Jailed in Germany for Enslaving and Abusing Yazidi Children

A German court has sentenced an Iraqi couple to prison for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity committed while they were members of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS) group in Iraq. They were also found guilty of the sexual abuse of children and of aiding and abetting such crimes. The man was sentenced to life imprisonment, while his former partner received a sentence of nine and a half years under juvenile law. Under German privacy laws, the couple were identified as Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. They were arrested in the state of Bavaria in April last year. The court proved that both defendants enslaved two Yazidi females. The couple purchased the two Yazidi girls as slaves in Iraq when the victims were just 5 and 12 years old. They subsequently exploited the children, forced them into labour, and tortured them. The man was proven to have sexually abused the children, while the female defendant was reported to have assisted in these acts. ‘The heinous violence is so far removed from human values that it feels absurd,’ said a representative from the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office. One of the former victims of the enslavement was present in the courtroom in Germany and burst into tears as the verdict was read. The presiding judge, Philipp Stoll, read out testimony from one of the plaintiffs stating that ‘even dogs were valued more than us.’ The judge also noted that the verdict marked the first conviction in Germany for forced religious conversion, as the defendants forced the women to convert from Yazidism to Islam. The female defendant, now 30 years old, apologised during the trial, while her former husband refused to speak in court.