Northern Iraq: Farida Khalaf belongs to the ethnic group of Yazidi people. She was a teenager when ISIS took over her village, executing the men and selling the women and girls into sexual slavery. Imprisoned, raped and beaten, she refused to give up hope …

Kidnapped from a village in Northern Iraq.

Sold into a Slave Market in Raqqa/Syria.

I’d been traded like an animal at the livestock market. I screamed and kicked.

I had been told a woman’s honour stood for the honour of her family. I felt I’d failed.

We all held hands so nobody got lost in the darkness. Then we started to run.

„The men ripped off our veils and yanked us into the shower by our hair. We screamed so loudly that the entire neighborhood must have heard. But no one bothered about what went on in the Emir’s house at night. They whipped out daggers from their belts. With a swift cut from top to bottom Zeyad deprived me of my skirt and blouse. The men were both drenched too now, but undeterred. I observed myself as if from a distance, calmly imagining that the girl enduring all of this only looked like me. I, the real Farida, was floating above her, where the men couldn’t reach me.“

Extracted from “The Girl Who Beat Isis: My Story” by Farida Khalaf.