 So good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, I'm Bill Taylor, I'm the Executive Vice President here at the United States Institute of Peace, welcome Kurt, glad to have you here, welcome. We are so pleased to be able to co-sponsor this with McCain Institute and Kurt Volcker as the Executive Director there, I was glad to have him arrive right now. For those of you new to the Institute of Peace, we are in our 32nd year, the Congress established us 32 years ago to as an independent national institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, peace is practical, peace is essential for U.S. and international security. So that's what we're here, we believe that peace is possible and we're making it possible. We're very pleased as I say to cooperate and co-sponsor this event here today with McCain Institute and we want to thank McCain Institute for hosting the reception that will follow this event a little later on this afternoon. We are here to discuss illicit trafficking in networks and sexual abuse that ISIS has used in Iraq and surrounding countries and what the international community can do to address these criminal activities. The use of sexual violence is not a new phenomenon, history has shown us that women and girls are especially vulnerable to trafficking and slavery. Policy makers and diplomats have condemned these acts but as the United States transitions to a new administration and a new Secretary General comes in at the UN, it's important to reflect on what's working to combat criminality and what more needs to be done in order to break the cycles of violence and help communities and families heal. Let me recognize the former President of Kosovo who is here with us, Madam President that honors us to have you here and all the work you've done on this issue both in your country and in Europe and in the world is a good tribute to what we're doing here today. And now I'm very pleased to introduce Mrs. Cindy McCain. Mrs. McCain serves as the Chair of the McCain Institute's Human Trafficking Advisory Council and Co-Chair of the Arizona Governor's Council on Human Trafficking. She has dedicated her life to reducing human trafficking in Arizona, throughout the United States and around the world as well as working to improve the lives of victims of human trafficking. So please join me in welcoming Mrs. McCain to the stage. Thank you. Welcome. I know that all of you are here today. It is, to those of us that work on this issue on a daily basis, to have so many people here today not only willing to listen to it who perhaps are not involved in the issue but want to learn more importantly what kind of action items you can take out of here today, you're in the right place. The McCain Institute is an action-oriented institute we believe in working on solutions to the issues, not just talking about them. So that's why it is so important for us to partner with the Institute for Peace because they believe the same thing that we do. So we're very proud to have you as a partner and very happy to be here today. Thank you for doing this. Just a couple of days ago a friend of mine sent me an article. My friend is someone who works on the ground in Syria and in Libya on just this issue in saving girls, saving little girls, saving women, getting them out of a terrifically desperate situation and getting help for them. He sent me an article about a little girl, maybe some of you saw it, she's about 8 years old and the tragic horrors that had occurred to her and were occurring until a series of things happened, all in the name of what was righteous and what was the right thing to do. These little girls and these women have been so tragically misunderstood and more importantly have not been tended to. This is not a woman's issue by any chance. This is an issue of peace, it's an issue of human rights, it's a terrorism issue. That's the distinction we have to make when we start talking about this specific issue. These women and little girls have, like I said, had horrific lives and so many of them will, if they do live, will never recover from what has happened to them. That's why this is so important. Most importantly it is a bipartisan issue. Whenever I see partisan sides being taken on an issue such as this, I really get mad. I really, really, really get mad and for those of you who are in this, I know you know, none of us put up with this, with that. This is not a partisan issue, it's a bipartisan issue, it is a nonpartisan issue, it's a human issue. It's the reason we're here today. I'd like to just give a shout out, if I may, to Senators Heitkamp, Senators Klobuchar and Senators Corker. There are three of my very dear friends, as you know, that work very hard on this issue and have made progress on this issue. We have so far to go on what we're doing with this. Most importantly, the panel today is full of some amazing and remarkable people who are distinguished, with distinguished voices on this issue particularly. I just saw Ernie Allen sit down back there. Ernie, welcome. Ernie, raise your hand. I know everyone knows Ernie Allen, who founded NICMIC and has done so many things on this issue. And may I also, I just saw Maria Odom. Where are you, Maria? There you are. Maria, thank you for what you're doing at the Department of Homeland Security on this. But I have the honor to be able to introduce our first speaker and panelist, if I may. I'm so happy to introduce the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zinab Bangora. When we first met each other today, I've of course read so much about you and have followed what you have done and your efforts on this. But we zeroed in on each other on just a specific issue. We just talked about the fact that this is not a woman's issue. So I am so pleased that you're here. I'm so pleased that I have the honor to introduce you. And I'd like you to come forward and talk to us about this. Thank you. And thanks for having me. Thank you. William Taylor, Executive Vice President of the USIP. Mrs. Cindy McLean, Chair of the McLean Institute of Human Trafficking and Advisory Council. Our moderator, Elise, and my co-panelist. Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It is a great pleasure to be here with you today. I would like to sincerely thank the United States Institutes of Peace and the McLean Institute for International Leadership for hosting these events and for encouraging discussion on an issue that so dramatically illustrates the nexus between sexual violence, terrorism, trafficking, and the revival of slavery in modern times. In 2012, when I was elected for the role of Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, the United Nations Security Council had just adopted a series of resolutions, recognizing sexual violence as a tactic of war. These frameworks were built on the firm foundation of international humanitarian, criminal, and human rights law. And the graphic accounts of the rape camps of Bosnia and the genocidal rapes in Rwanda and Darfur, Sudan, and of course as a former president of Kosovo said Kosovo, which had arrested the attention of the world. The United States played a leadership role in framing this breakthrough resolution, affirming that the challenge of sexual violence in conflict cannot and should not be separated from the broader security issues confronting the council. This clarified once and for all that sexual violence is not cultural, but criminal. Not only one of the great moral issues of our time, but a security imperative also. This changed the way we think about raping war, helping to bring the subject into the center of international relations, foreign policy, and public debates. Despite this progress, my role as political advocate has shown me how women's lives and livelihood continue to be circumscribed by the threat of sexual violence. In the theaters of war, I have visited. Women and girls find themselves under assault every day and with every step they take, whether at border crossings, checkpoints, during house searches, in detention centers, and even in the very camps and settlements where they seek refuge. It is clear from our last report to the Security Council on conflict-related sexual violence, in which we focus on 19-country situations. The non-state actors account for the vast majority of parties responsible for committing patterns of sexual violence. These non-state actors include violent extremists, groups operating in Iraq, Mali, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. They are using sexual violence not only as a tactic of war, but also as a tactic of terrorism. When we think of terrorism, we tend to think of hijacking, austere taking, explosions, and property destruction. But we cannot deploy the public face of terrorism while ignoring the violence that terrorists inflict on women and girls in private behind closed doors. In April of last year, I visited the Middle East to document how sexual violence was being used by the government of Syria, as well as by non-state actors, including terrorist group, Daesh, or ISIL in particular. I traveled to Damascus in Syria, as well as to Baghdad, Arbil, Dohok, and Lalish in Iraq. Since returning, I have spoken to the world's media about the use of sexual violence as both a tactic of war and terrorism. I have written to all members of the anti-ISIL coalition, urging them to elevate women's rights to the heart of multilateral effort to counter violent extremism and terrorism. Efforts that have been classically genderblind. I have mobilized the United Nations counter terrorism infrastructure to mainstream sexual violence concern into their work. Following this advocacy, greater attention has been paid to the issue of conflict-related sexual violence at the policy level. 2015 saw a series of milestone developments in the Security Council, including the adoption of Resolution 2242 on women, peace, and security, which expressed deep concern that acts of sexual and gender-based violence had become part of the strategic objective and ideology of terrorist groups. Resolution 2253, which expanded the existing sanction regime to include ISIS dash as part of effort to suppress the financing of terrorism and the presidential statements on trafficking in persons in which the Security Council recognized the nexus between conflict-related sexual violence, violent extremism and trafficking, and the need to pursue accountability and sanctions for individuals and entity involved in such crimes. Yet, even as I speak, women have been traded in open-slave bazaar in Raqqa. They have been sold in virtual market places online. Like the sale of oil, antiquities, or drugs, this has become part of the political economy of war and terror. Over 3,000-year ZD remain in ISIS dash captivity. Other persecuted groups are facing sexual violence crimes. Dash streets women and girls as a kind of currency to compensate its fighters, attract new recruits, and consolidate its power. These women and girls are even included in the last list and testament of dash fighters as mere property that can be transferred upon their death to other fighters or so-called brothers. One survivor of ISIS enslavement named Nassima says that, I quote, Whenever I still had an airplane overhead, they will send me out. They thought that if the pilot saw me, they will not bomb them. But I hoped they would. For Nassima, bombs are preferable to repeated and relentless rape. The fact is that without exemption, the rise of violent extremism is accompanied by crackdown on women's autonomy, rights, and freedoms. This is not incidental, but premeditated, systematic, and strategic. Extremists know that to populate a territory and control a population, you must first control the bodies of women. Indeed, the same lethargy of orals echoes across the account of Nigerian girls who have fled the grip of Boko Haram, tales of Somali women liberated from al-Shabaab and depictions of women lives in Northern Mali under the shadow of Ansardin. Dash is even using medical professionals to procure drugs and administer or moan treatment to accelerate the physical maturation of young girls in order to expedite their sale and sexual exploitation. Dash medics have drug women and girls to facilitate rape and forced abortion. It is staggering that in the 21st century, the year 2016, wars are still being fought on the bodies of women and girls and to a large extent fought over their bodies. It not only remains a feature of the 21st century warfare, but I will argue has been reinvented by armed groups to serve their military, political, economic, and ideological aims. This includes network of transnational terrorists, such as Dash and its affiliates that have no respect for international law, international legitimacy, or national borders. They're using social media platform to facilitate human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Right now, women and children are being sold and traded in the same online forums as children in this online forum as rifle and rocket-propelled grenades. I have met girls who were traded not just once, but up to eight times during their months in Dash captivity and each transaction turning a profit for their captors. So to move from advocacy and condemnation to action, I believe that we need a multi-dimensional response at the global, regional, and national level. At the regional level, we need to focus on divesting Dash of resources and degrading their capacity to communicate, travel, trade, and do harm. We also need to invest in a collaborative collaboration with regional organizations, such as the League of Arab States, with which my office has recently signed a framework of cooperation. This framework aims to mobilize political commitments and foster closer collaboration in combating conflict-related sexual violence. It acknowledges complex cross-border challenges, including the trade and trafficking of women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation. In addition, we need to foster ownership, leadership, and responsibility on the part of national authorities of affected countries. A powerful illustration of this is a bilateral agreement my office signed two weeks ago with the government of Iraq at the level of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. This joint communique is focused on the provision of justice, services, and security to affected communities. I would like to outline here some of the main provisions of this agreement as it reflects our key priorities encountering the threat posed by ISIL. While this agreement is specific to the extent of Iraq, I believe the approach and strategy may be instructive for other nations also. Indeed, the four main pillars outline a comprehensive response to the scourge of sexual violence and slavery unleashed by ISIL Dash. The first pillar is justice and accountability. The support and visage under the agreement includes the documentation and collection of evidence of such crimes, strengthen the Iraqi legal framework to be able to better address sexual violence, and put in place modalities for victims' compensation. In addition to identifying judicial avenues, it's important that a full range of transitional justice options is considered. These could include options for truth-seeking, reparation, and measures to minimize the risk of such crimes ever being repeated and to maximize the potential for a successful national reconciliation process. Secondly, the joint communique serves as a framework for action and coordination to address the urgent need for services including psychosocial support and reproductive health care as well as livelihood support for survivors. In the extent of sexual violence, the sociocultural shame and stigma can easily turn victims into outcasts. This means that after all they have endured, many abducted women, especially those who return home pregnant or with children, face the additional heartbreak of being shown by their own family and community. The trauma also lives on in the flight of children born of wartime rape who remain in the shadows, marginalized, undocumented, and often stateless. Third, our communique refers to the critical role of civil society, including religious and traditional leaders who can help to shift the shame and stigma of sexual violence from the victims to the perpetrator. This can make the difference between survivors being welcomed, accepted, and reintegrated into their communities rather than being rejected and re-victimized. And finally, the communique places special emphasis on ensuring that the protection and empowerment of women is central to all strategies to combat dash. This may be reflected, for example, in the current and future operations undertaken by militaries of the anti-ISIL coalition to liberate the last stronghold of dash in Iraq, namely, Mosul. It is crucial to ensure that they see women and girls held as sex slaves and any children they may have as first and foremost, victims are not affiliates of this group. They need to plan accordingly in order to protect and support escaped or liberated women and children. It is also important for them to anticipate that there will be opportunities to collect evidence from liberated areas which will need to be preserved for future justice response. Ultimately, it is my hope that this agreement will help to catalyze greater support from the international community to help those in Iraq already working to put an end to conflict-related sexual violence. These women and girls are not abstract statistics. They are human beings, mothers, daughters and sisters, like Nassima from Iraq and the countless others like her. Thank you very much. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Great. Thank you, Zaynab, for those very powerful remarks. And thank you to USAIP and the McCain Institute. Mrs. McCain, thank you so much for being here to address this important issue that I think is often, we hear so much about the campaign against ISIS. Unfortunately, we don't hear a lot about the violence against women by ISIS and particularly sexual violence. So I'm so glad to have such a large audience to discuss this. And we have this important panel here today with some of the leading experts. In addition to Zaynab, we have Mark Lagan who used to be, how I know him actually at the State Department, the Ambassador-at-Large for dealing with trafficking in human persons. And we also have Sahrang Hama Said who is the Director, Senior Program Officer for Middle East Programs. I just gave him a promotion at US Institute of Peace. So I think we'll have a conversation and then we'll open it up to you. We have a lot of distinguished practitioners in the field here today. So I hope we can get a conversation talking about practical solutions to how we can help combat this problem. Well, Zaynab kicked it off for us. So Sahrang, let's talk a little bit about the Middle East in particular, and ISIS and what, from your experience, how and why is sexual violence used within the Middle East and what role does minority tension play in the situation, not only in regards to women that are forced into sex slavery but how they're treated in the experience? Because I think we really need to, if we're gonna look at how to combat it, we need to understand what we're dealing with right here in terms of ISIS in the region. Right, well, thank you. I think in the context of the Middle East, I'll be talking about this from two angles. One, my professional experience working on issues of the Middle East and second, actually being originally from the Middle East and being not of eyewitness but a semi-eye-witness, the genocide sexual slavery rape and these matters by individuals or institutions did not start with ISIS until not in there. We, if you can trace it back, if you go back a 30 year back to 1987, 1988, when the Iraqi government, the Bath Party under Saddam Hussein used the Anfal operations, genocide against the Kurds, you, if you compare, study that operation and you look at what happened in Kojo and other parts of what happened to the Yazidis and the Spiker massacre in Tikrit, you will see that there's a muscle memory, there's a mindset that knows what to do when and when to get the buses, what to do, there's a mindset for managing such complex operations. So looking at this issue, we have to look at the broader historic term of this and then we will be able to actually come up with more effective solutions to this. Many people talk about religion as a cover for the Bath Party used it. In the case of the Yazidis, Yazidi women, they talk that they're not the people of the book, that's why it is allowed, it's legal, it's a religiously allowed for ISIS to do this. But that's just using religion as an excuse, as a cover. The Bath Party did similar things to Kurdish women who were, the Kurds are predominantly Muslim. So in that case, religion was not what was used but it's not the actual trigger. It is a means of persecution, it's a means to bring people to control and, pardon me? Bring them to heal. Yes, so that's, and you see that in the ISIS today as an institution, it was the Bath Party before, you see that in the Assad regime and Qaddafi and others have used it, so I think it's important to take that mindset issue and deal with it and conflict is the other aspect of this. It happened, these happen at the time of conflict but also the Bath Party methodically did that. Also the Bath Party methodically did this through its security apparatus in Soleimaniya, the security apparatus building was called the Red Security Building. After the building was taken in the uprising in 1991, you would go there and see all the tools and the, you see the victims of the heinous crimes that were perpetrated in that building. But the most painful that I have seen was actually the trailer that was at the back of the building where they would systematically take women and rape them there, again part of the process. So nothing new, it will stay, the question is, how do we, what has changed this time? And what ISIS did this time, it was, the Bath was a party, it was an institution of the state. ISIS made sure that it implicates tribes, it brings members of the tribes in the area and uses them, obviously the minority communities and others accuse their neighboring tribes, Sunni tribes in Nino and other places that they were the perpetrators. But it is important to know that actually even that, ISIS, the leaders of ISIS methodically used this. And senior members of ISIS were senior members of the Bath Party. So the continuity of that mindset and institutionalization is important. And it was, it may be portrayed as an attempt to portray against the minority group, I think, this is where they could have the weakest link in terms of they can justify it the most. But at other times, there's no doubt in my mind, they would have done it and they would have found a different cover for it. And just to be clear, this is not about sex or sexual pleasure, this is about power, control, destruction. I mean it's all of the above, it depends, there are people who are doing it methodically for demographic changes, but there are those who are in the lower-ranked soldiers and fighters in those organizations, they may be doing it for pleasure. And it's just what ISIS brought to light and what was happening before is that social media, the international media made it, brought more light to it. And people have, I mean the heinous act is, you look at, you hear a story of a 17-year-old girl and then you say, okay, this is the most horrible you've heard and the way you hear the story of the 11-year-old and the way until you hear the story of the seven-year-old. So there's a barbarism and criminality in these people that no justification or framework justifies. Mark, so you've been doing this a long time from a trafficking perspective, human trafficking and a lot of that is sex trafficking. How does this type of phenomenon of the use by terrorists kind of compare to some of the other horrible stories that we've heard over decades in terms of these criminal gangs that are doing it for profit, for instance? Well, the first thing I like to do is note the word slavery. For some people who are new to the human trafficking field, they think this is novel and they think the special form of degradation that ISIS has been pursuing deserves the term, but reason the human trafficking field has adopted that term is it's really not about the movement of people as much as about the gross exploitation dehumanization of people. So in that sense, it's not different or new. Nor is it shockingly different that there has been a blending of violent extremists and the criminal elements in the news, just in the last few days, is the vote in Colombia about the peace framework there and the FARC. Now a very different kind of actor, not as heinous as ISIS perhaps, has blended the criminal networks, the transnational networks, the desire to sustain funding for their violent purposes and the use of sex trafficking for money. The interesting thing about the situation for ISIS is that the same time you have the phenomenon of targeted degradation, targeted dehumanization that isn't primarily about the money. And then fundamentally trying to sustain the efforts of ISIS and the criminal networks that we have seen around the world having that kind of ethic. I was struck when I come to Georgetown recently transitioning from being president of Freedom House and we honored at Freedom House the 75th anniversary, Vian De Kiel as a woman legislator Ziazidi in Iraq. And she understands and speaks very articulately about how this is an issue as Cindy McCain and the SRSG say, it's not a women's issue. This is an issue about a category of human beings being treated as subhuman. And that's what connects the criminality of trafficking to general atrocities in war to this specific case of ISIS. Zaynab, I wanna talk more about how they're using, is particularly ISIS now, is using this in terms of they aren't see, and I think it goes into the whole point that this is not only a women's issue. They're treating them as property. And if you read some of the documents that have been found on ISIS, and I'd like Sahang to weigh in too, they lay out how this property is supposed to be disposed of or traded or sold, or they're not even, it seems as if they're not even seeing them as women. And I think there are also interesting issues of Islamic law here, because they lay out the legal restriction and detailed rulings to sanction the sexual slavery, seeming that they're trying to kind of counter the issues of Islamic law. For instance, the ISIS documents say that the owner of the slave should quote, show compassion towards her, be kind and not humiliate her, or sell her to someone that he knows will mistreat her. But that's not happening here. These are not seen as people. Well, I think there are two issues here. First, of how the ISIS sells the women, how they trade them off. They agree, they don't see them as individual. I mean, one of the most unique experiences we have encountered with ISIS, they actually created, they don't only have a policy with Baghdadi having a fatwa, which is wrote, they also created infrastructure, an office, and they developed a manual, how you sell these girls, and they actually have a price list, and then they have a market place. So the market place is not only on the bazaar, but online, because we actually track some of this transaction where you see they put lipstick on the girls and everything, have their picture on the online, and say this one is $3,000, $4,000. And when they put those girls in the open markets, they actually auction them. So people come and they look at them and they examine them, you know, just like Katsu. And I think that's one of the most unique things that we have not experienced. So this woman becomes commodity. There are several transactions. I met a woman who actually she was 22 years old. She had been sold for 21 times. So they keep moving. Every time somebody gets tired with this person, they either put her online or sends her back to the market and said, I'm training this person. So that's the unique thing with ISIS. And it's not only against Yazidis, it's against, we're not talking about all minorities, you know, LGBTs and Christians. I had a discussion with the Archbishop of Baghdad. The Christian population has reduced considerably to almost like 400,000. These were millions in Baghdad. They're not there. They run away on some of them. I mean, even with the Turkman sheath. We don't hear about them because there's a high rate of suicide among them because their community has refused to accept them back, which is different from the Yazidis because the Yazidis created a structure which helps to buy the girls back. And because they know the Yazidi people are prepared to pay money, they actually resell them to their people. That's one aspect. The other aspect, they do it on the pretext of Islamic law. You know, I went to Egypt. So I had a meeting with the grand Imam of the Al-Azad University because as a Muslim, I find this extremely strange. You know, I was taught the Quran before I went to English school. And that's not the Islam I was taught. So I actually went to challenge them in Cairo and I said, you have to do something. You know, he told us, so this is a release. I made a press release. It's not the same. You have. And so one of the things we're trying to work with them is actually to bring different religious leaders in most of the countries affected to actually discuss it and give an alternative narrative. Because at the end of the day, it's been accepted by everybody. This is what is true. But they know as well as, but then unfortunately they have not. So my job is to challenge them to come with a counter narrative that you cannot sit here and allow Baghdadi to issue a fatwa to justify sexual slavery in the name of Islam. So those are the two challenges we are fighting. So they're using it. Their argument is that ISIL is not a member of the book, but they are doing it on Muslim as well. That's what is it. How don't you pick up on that? Talk about the way that they're not only how they're using Islamic law and citing the Quran, and maybe how governments can use that to inspire people to free slaves. But also I think these documents laying out how they're trying, they know it seems as if they know that they're skirting the law because they're laying out very specific restrictions of how they get around it. For instance, very few of them are getting pregnant because they're using birth control. Why is that? Because they know they're not supposed to get someone pregnant, especially someone that is not a Muslim or someone who could be already pregnant. So they shouldn't be sleeping with a woman who isn't pregnant. So I think the whole use of birth control and these type of skirting the law is very a very unique thing in terms of how they're treating the women. Yeah, I think I totally agree with Zaynab that they're being treated as commodities and even that treated as spoils of war. And the Yazidis did not go to war with ISIS. It was ISIS that attacked them. So even that justification really doesn't stand ground. It's just, it's a cover. For me, the religion we'll talk to to the Muslim community, they would tell you that Islam as a religion came to rescue women because the kind of circumstances that ISIS takes them through now, Islam at its foundation was trying to treat that and prevent that and address that. So today, whatever ISIS says, it's a justification in a larger, bigger issue. I think they are doing this for bigger strategic purposes. It's important to remember that all of this is happening in the realm of conflict. That part of the world is seeing conflict that so the minority community, the women, the children and others are being affected by a conflict. So in that vacuum, this organization doesn't have the accountability. It is the decrees and the instructions that they produce. They're so systematic. Very systematic. And it's important to know that it's not just in this area. They do it about taxation. They do it about every other aspect of running a state or running a governing. It's not good governance by the definitions that we follow, but they have these manuals and these details about almost every aspect. This is the most heinous of it. This is what we're discussing today, but this organization tried to organize things for it to stay, to feed its fighting force from all aspects, whether it's salary, training, weapons, women and what have you. And I think it is important to, again, getting back to the earlier point, we have to see this not separate from conflict, not as a single issue, but a broader range of issues. We have to have specific actions in this particular area, but we have to look at the broader thing. The religious thing is just I'm not buying that. I'm sorry. Mark, picking up on what Zaynab said about the agreement and how you can get local governments to work on this. Do you sense a receptivity from local governments to seeing this issue as part of their campaign against fighting ISIS, for instance? I think there is potential. It will be difficult to implement, but it combines the ability of delegitimizing ISIS with delivering for people. I mean, ultimately, government to prove its own legitimacy has to take, you know, prevent people from facing harm or deal with the survivors. I very much like the opening remarks, emphasizing that we can think about criminal networks, we can think about kinetic responses and so on, but the highest priority is to help those who have been harmed. And if local governments see that as an important priority, they in fact will build their own legitimacy. Zaynab, let's talk a little bit about rehabilitation. After the women are abused by ISIS escape or they're freed, what kind of aftercare facilities do these women need? And for instance, what kind of provisions does the UN put in terms? I've worked with some groups like SEED and Kurdistan that have specific programs, but in terms of more institutional and multilateral form? I think it comes in, let's say, into three different categories. First is the psychosocial support and trauma counseling. That's very important, because what sexual violence does is dehumanizes you, you degrade you as a human being. So the stigma, because if you take, for example, the Yazidi, it's a very traditional community, very cultural. And so for those girls, at the beginning of the ISIL's attack on the Yazidis, the suicide rate was extremely high because these girls could not face back their communities because the stigma all over the world. I mean, when the war in Iraq in Syria started, we saw even some amount of ono killing because fathers would rather kill their wives and their daughters than accept them to be as victims of sexual violence. There's an increase in early marriage because once there is a threat of sexual violence, they'd rather give their children at the age of 10 or so to get married and just have them raped. So what the Yazidi did in terms of is to actually come out the Babashek, the traditional leader. He was in the UN recently. He came out and pronounced to them, these are our girls. We can't allow them to commit suicide. We have to bring it back. More so because the Yazidis is a small community and they realize that once these girls commit suicide, then it's very difficult for the population to grow. So the psychosocial and trauma counseling, one of the things we found out because of the cultural differences, when you're doing the trauma counseling and the psychosocial, you need to have somebody who understands the culture, the background, who speaks the language. So it's one of the biggest problem we had when we went to Iraq. Now, luckily, Germany is actually trying to open a school there on issue of psychosocial trauma counseling, the medical facilities. Some of these rape, some of these girls are rape instruments. They are multiple rape. The damage that it costs to them as human being is very, very difficult. So you really have to have the right medical facilities to support. We saw it in the DRC with Dr. Dennis Mokwigwe. So that's the second problem we have. The third is the livelihood support. Most people who have been raped, when I went to Somalia, 75% of the women who have been raped are divorced by their husbands. Nobody wants to touch you. How do you get these women to pick up the pieces of their lives? So for those women, even before you start talking about justice, you need to be able to provide the psychosocial supports, the medical supports, and the livelihood support because they have children. I've met women who are five, six children. Once they were raped, the husband said, I'm not even too sure the children are mine anymore. So she's thrown out. And you know, in this part of the world, marriage is between families. Once you get married to one family, you're gone. It's the sons who remain in the original family. So the family doesn't take you back. So once the husband's family abandon you, you're finished. So lots of these women actually become destitute. So, and I think that's what we encourage. So my experience is that there's a large, extensive amount of medical and psychosocial support, UNICEF, UNFP, some of these agencies are doing a lot of this work. Not much on medical is a big problem. It's expensive. For example, with the Yazidis, Germany has been able to take about 1,000 Yazidis to seek medical treatment in Germany. I've written letters to Kerry, to the British, to Sweden, to actually give preference to victims of sexual violence so that when you bring them as refugees, you can actually get them to go through the medical and psychosocial support. Kerry has announced that, okay, we give preference to them, anybody who commits a crime. But we don't have that kind of response. How we give support to victims of sexual violence so they can seek medical attention when they come overseas. The livelihood of support, I say, is the missing link. I've traveled, as far as the World Bank, to say, the money you give on post-conflict records, so why don't you help with those women? So we still have a lot of battle. So that is some amount. Back to what you were saying about how this isn't even considered part of the kind of reconstruction of an issue. You know, the interesting thing, which we have been fighting, victims of sexual violence are not seen as victims of terrorism. In Bosnia, we had to fight, when the law was passed in Bosnia, victims of the rape in Bosnia are not victims of the war. So we're struggling still to have them recognized as victims of terrorism. Because when they are recognized as victims of terrorism, then they can benefit from the reparation and the resources. So that's why we keep saying, that's when I said in my statement, they have to be seen as victims of terrorism. So that we have to include in the counter-terrorism strategies the protection and empowerment of women. Because when they are seen, and then when everything comes at the end of the war, they can benefit from whatever comes. So it's just rape, it's inevitable, it's a by-product of war, so let them forget about it. That's the biggest challenge. I know Sarhan wants to weigh in, but I think it's gonna be interesting if and when and what has happened to some of these women, young girls that were taken by Boko Haram. Exactly. These were victims of, these were clearly victims of terrorism, but they were also victims of sexual violence because Boko Haram is seen as a terrorist. Is that what they're facing when they come home? Oh yes, the problem is, I have to be honest with you, I haven't even started touching Nigeria because it's just a nightmare. It's a nightmare in what these girls are going through. Because you know, my office is small, that's why I came to State Department to see what we can do to support. Because those girls are being re-victimized. You know, when the girls are come back, you know, the security then starts harassing them. That's why we've done the notes to work with the office, the mission, to engage the Iraqi government to actually have that special appeal on the girls that are already in Mosul. So when they come out, because these girls are not seen as perpetrators, that's a treat. So they are re-victimized. The system itself is victimizing them and they don't have the necessary support. I mean, for this girl in Nigeria, the Boko Haram girl who was rescued, after a while, nobody knew where she was because she went from one security agency to another security agency to another security agency. And literally, you become a victim of the system. So instead of you being given the opportunity to access the psychosocial and medical support you need to recover, you're seen as an agent of Boko Haram and that's how you're treated. Sir. Yes, three quick points. One is definitely the capacity to deal with this. It was the shock, the trauma that this sex slavery and what ISIS did was so huge that the society was not prepared to deal with this. The capacity is not there. There's a shy culture that doesn't talk about that to try to hide that. So any capacity support in that space will go a long way and it's very important. The second aspect I would like to, in addition to giving a shout out to the religious leadership trying to change the society and deal with this problem, I think it's important to give a shout out to the Iraqi civil society. The non-governmental organizations, especially those working for the minorities and among those I wanna single out as an example, the Alliance of Iraqi Minorities that has members from the Christian community, the Yazidi community, the Christians, the Sabians, Mendean and others who have taken on the issue of what happened for documentation, for advocating on behalf of those women and take that to the third level, which is okay, there's what you do with the victims and the families now and there is the bigger picture of the very survival of the community and how do you prevent this down the road in the future because that is an important thing and this is where I tied back to the larger conflict and this is in Iraq and Syria, these are societies where you have about half of the population below of the age of 20 and a significant number of them have only seen violence and the kind of acts in their cities for the past five to 10 years. They do not know what's norm, what's human rights, what's peace, so the other cycle of violence and the kind of things that triggers these kind of heinous acts is in the making and I truly worry if now that we're talking about the liberation of Mosul and Iraq and that will be the end of ISIS there and people will forget about okay, what is still underneath, the stabilization and the reconciliation that needs to happen where that you try the social fabric of those societies back together rather than communities at war with each other. Mark, why don't you pick up on that? What the rehabilitation and kind of growth process is gonna be for these women, whether they're Yazidi women, I think a lot of times people, as Zaynab said, they tend to think about Yazidis because they got so much public attention but what needs to be done for these women in the region to ensure a healthy and full recovery? The ultimate aspiration is for these women to live lives where they thrive, where they're active as citizens, they may even be political leaders but here one can really draw a lesson from the human trafficking movement. A colleague of mine who I work with on the original trafficking legislation when we were Senate staffers is here. Over the last 16 years, we've got a lot of focus on human trafficking but one thing to get to the kind of psychosocial assistance to move from identifying the victim, sheltering the victim, protecting the victim, maybe some medical care to actually getting the psychological care and the trauma, that's something that societies need to invest in and it may seem beyond the reach of those communities but civil society and those authorities do need to look at that rehabilitation and think about the tangible small ways that you're going to help restore the dignity of someone and that may be dealing with the trauma clinically but it also is about how to be whole in a situation where you might not, you might be destitute or stigmatized. Is there any, for any of you, I mean particularly Sarah, is there any hope or signs that perhaps societies are starting to see that because this is part of ISIS and because these women have been victims of ISIS and because ISIS has gotten so much attention for their brutality that there could be, is there any signs that there could be a shift in terms of how societies see these women as victims of ISIS as opposed to victims of sexual violence which would kind of put them as outcasts in society? Our best example is with the Yazidis because like I mentioned to you, we visited them in Lalish and visited their religious leaders, their council of leaders as well as their temple. The Yazidis realized that they had to rescue their own children. There was a high level of suicide among the Yazidis, the girls, because the shame, they couldn't face their families, but once the spiritual leader, Babashek, made the pronouncements that we have to get our girls back and they walked through the Kurdistan government to actually have committees, you know, that will actually seek their release. They started finding ways and means, they communicated with the girls and they communicated with people within the ISIS control areas, the set up networks and the girls themselves got the message that we will take you back. The suicide rates reduced, the what's increase was the instinct to survive. We want to come out. And so the girls started finding ways and means how they could get out, how they could escape. I met several of the girls who managed to escape. The Yazidis started raising funds to buy their girls, communicating with the different captors, people who are holding the gas to pay them money. And so we saw an increase, unfortunately with the Turkmen sheaths, which is also a minority in Iraq, I spoke to the leader, he still refused, we've not been able to reach him mentally to understand these girls are victims and to bring them back. So we still have very little number of Turkmen sheaths who have survived, who have returned. Instead, they still have a high level of suicide rates among them. So the Yazidis for us is our best example. And that's how they're able to connect with Germany, a state in Germany that has actually been able to take out 1,000 of these girls, provide treatment. And Nadia, who is the Goodwill Ambassador, for the Nadia, they told us that the very first day Nadia came out, she said, I want to tell my story. I want to talk. I need to tell the world what happened to me. So she wasn't forced, she herself decided we need to let the world know what happened. We're very worried about her, but she is so determined. Everywhere she's addressed the Security Council, the generals and everybody, she's telling the story of what happened. So the girls themselves are very willing, they are ready because they just want, they don't want it to happen to somebody. So for me, that's the best example we have, not with any other community, because the level of stigma is extremely high. The families have to be ready to accept it. The communities have to be ready to accept it, to give you the cover and the protection that you are not seen as a rape victim, you're seen as a victim. Of terrorism. Of terrorism. And so that's the best example we have and we've been trying to replicate it with others, it's not possible. There is, of course, a variation between cases to the degree to which it's been reframed that these are victims of terrorism. But this is a double-edged sword, of course, because to get people to only care about those who have been subject to violence against women because it's terrorism, one hopes that there's going to be a transformation led by civil society itself of that. In terms of sexual violence in general. But I do think that in order to hold the perpetrators to account and to access services or to be treated like a refugee and prioritized among them, you do need to reframe it as that. One is reminded of the case in the Balkans and the discussion of sexual violence among atrocities and defining it as atrocities. That is a step forward, but it's important not to suggest that violence against women generally is something you can't move a society on unless you put it in that special category. Do you think the US government sees this in terms of when we were talking before that we started in terms of combating ISIS in terms of the campaign against ISIS? I feel that officials are, when they're citing ISIS brutality, they perhaps will mention, oh yes, and these poor Yazidi women were sex slaves, but when it comes time to fighting the war against ISIS, it seems as if that particular aspect is lacking. Well, it's a question, is this the mini version of the question during World War II? If you know that there are railroads that are taking Jews to the camps, do you focus on that in your efforts? I think it's important for the United States to look at the horror and address that and make sure you don't get into a mindset of, well, we've got to assemble the coalition and everybody who's in the coalition has the biases based on gender and so therefore, you know. Right, but we have a five prong, right? There's a five prong strategy, countering violent extremism, foreign fighters, terrorism, should sexual violence be one of those? Yeah, I think so. Be one of those, I'm sorry. Yeah, I think again to the original question, I think the response of the society varies from one community to another. I think that at least the Yazidi community has started to accept that this is a different situation. You do not apply the same societal norms to somebody who did not choose what happened, but actually was a victim of it. Well, I mean, all of these women, right, whether they're taken by ISIS or if they're victims of sexual violence, I think very few choose to be. Exactly, but the society, because they don't know how to deal with that, so the set of tools, societal tools available to them, they go and use those. And I think there is a change, it takes time. And these societies are, whether Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, are under a lot of stress. I mean, there is still a violent conflict going on. There are economic crisis. There is so many other aspects in their lives so that this particular aspect may not, because of the shame, the sense of shame that comes with it, they may not want to talk about it. And because of the plethora of things that they have to address on a daily basis, it may not take priority. And actually to make matters worse and complicated is actually the children that are born out of these relationships. Whether, before ISIS, you had the sons of al-Qaeda in Iraq where many children born out of forced marriage or rape by al-Qaeda fighters. Now you have ISIS, the numbers that I say, I mean, it's hard to track these, but some 300,000 people are stateless. They cannot be registered anywhere. So even if you deal with the women, that these children and their future and what comes in their education, their inclusion in society is a problem that the society has not been able to find a solution. Although I think it's kind of an interesting phenomenon that while they're trying to build the caliphate and all you were saying about this kind of how they deal with taxes and how they deal with sexual slavery and over, they've also paid attention to, there are very few births within these sex slaves. I think it's... Well, it's the liberates because they sell them over and over. If you get pregnant, you lose your value. You can't sell them. So they actually give them contraceptives so they don't get pregnant, so they have an opportunity to resell them. So it's the liberates. And sometimes, as I said, we have the names and list of even doctors who are actually giving hormone treatment to these girls. I read that we're getting depravera some of them. Yes, so that a girl of 10 year can look like 16 year old. They give them so that they can have their breast fill, so that she becomes, she has high market value. So all of this information that we're documenting, and these are things that the girls are telling us, and some of the girls who have been managed to escape, they've been drugged continuously, so they have memory loss. So once they come out, once you start talking to them, do you remember a lot of things that happens to them? Sometimes it comes back. So they have a whole lot of challenges. Is there a movement within the United Nations or within the coalition? There's a lot of talk about what ISIS is doing are war crimes, crimes against humanity. Do you think that these sex crimes, the sexual violence will be considered in that basically because we've been talking about how we need to pay more attention that this is an act of terrorism? No, it's already a war crime. It's a crime against humanity. Right now we have a campaign that is being launched by Amal Clooney to actually ensure accountability for crimes of ISIS. And what we had, the UK is working closely with her to be able to see whether they can have a resolution and the security comes in terms of accountability for ISIS crime. It's a huge... Do you think sex crimes will be included in that? It is, it's the main crime. It's one of the main crimes. Actually, because she's representing Nadia, who was a sex slave. So basically, she as a representative of Nadia is trying to work to actually have a commission of inquire or something by the UN on the issue of crimes against the Yazidis because already the UN, the Human Eye Commission for Human Rights has described it as a genocide. You know, Kerry has said as a genocide. So how do you ensure that there's accountability mechanism through the Security Council that will hold ISIS accountable? We don't know how far that is going to go but that's what she's trying to work. I mean, the Syria and the Iraqi conflict is one of the most highly documented conflicts. We have so many organizations who have documented. So it's a matter of actually concepts. We've been working with the Iraqi and saying to them, even within your own country, you should start doing something. You should start putting together a team of legal minds to start saying what are the things that are committed. There's a huge challenge because, you know, after I came from the Middle East, I went to the ICC and I spoke to the 15 judges. They are very reluctant to deal with this because there is going to be very difficult for a referral from the Security Council to the ICC. That's been because then it's going to be very difficult with how the Security Council operates. And so the challenge we have, when are we going to have accountability? How are we going to have accountability? Who is going to know? So those are some of the challenges that we have. And the Yazidis and the other minor social Yazidis are very angry, I have to say, because they are saying nobody's paying attention to it. Genocide crimes have been committed against them and they don't see any indication of any act of accountability. I'm going to ask Sarhaan to weigh in, but we're going to open it up next to the audience. If you have a question, there are two mics on the other side of the... We'll bring mics to them. They'll bring, okay, we'll bring mics to them. Okay, we're going to bring mics to you. So I jumped the gun there, so. Yes, on the issue of accountability, what is really complicated with ISIS and Daesh is actually how, as I mentioned earlier, they have implicated the community. This is an organization that has drawn members from fighters coming from overseas and second from... Over 100 countries. Pardon me? Over 100 countries. Yes, and also from the local tribes. And they made sure that they document, in certain cases, they document those with video and so that they tie the communities into the crimes that they have committed so that that will help with their continuity and that will saw the division among the society. So in Iraq, in Syria and in Yemen and to a certain extent in Libya, I am worried about tribal revenge and societal revenge outside the system because that will be the fast way to get justice. Members of the minority community or others accuse the tribes next door of being taken part in those crimes. And when the legal system, first of all, doesn't have the capacity to do this, does not have the know-how to deal with this issue, you have three, four provinces still affected by violence, 3.3 million people displaced. The restoration of the justice system just for ordinary matters is a challenge, let alone this complex issue. So time in that sense is not on our side. So the global coalition, the international community would really need to step up efforts in this area so that the judicial mechanisms are provided and the expectations are managed because if people take the social route, the tribal route, the cycle of violence that will follow will bring us more violence and more atrocities. Okay, we're gonna open it up to questions. If you have a question, raise your hand. I'm gonna ask you to identify yourself and keep your questions short so we can get as many as possible. I'm gonna take two questions at a time. One right here and one at this gentleman right here. Hi, thank you, my name is Jen and I'm the founder of Four Girls Global Leadership. What would happen with the girls from the West that is joining ISIS and also taking a sexual slavery? How would their justice come? Certainly. Yes, Joe Graziano from the DOD Inspector General. A question is, it seems to be a lot of things you're discussing are things for sort of after this has stopped or after what to do, documenting things. Isn't it most important now to discuss what are the military options to kill the people who are actually committing the crimes and to stop it from happening? Sar Hong, why don't you take that and Mark, why don't you take the question about the West? It's a very interesting issue. I mean, some of these girls, they may be welcomed home but can we, you know, they're actually, they may not even be sex slaves. They're willing, some of them are willing maybe a little misguided and certainly troubled but some of them are willing participants. Yeah, so I think there is a lot still, I mean, there's a short term and a long term on this specific issue and the issue in general. On the pre, now there is still liberation and there are still these girls that are still with ISIS. Their safety and how they could be helped. There were times where the Yazidi community, even Sunni tribes identified the location of where they were held. So there was, from their perspective, there was a period of time where actually a special operation could have helped in rescuing them. Now they're scattered around in some more complex situation. In the long term, I think we have to keep the social norm. What ISIS is doing is religion, using religion, other things to say this is normal and if this becomes, it's creeps into the norm of the society or at least the areas in the community that they control, it's a problem. We have to work on this over the long term through the institutions of the United Nations, through the laws of the country but also at the community level to prevent this. As I mentioned, Anfal happened some 30 years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if down the road a few years back we will be talking about another tragedy. So it is, it's not only kinetic. Definitely the societal, the legal and accountability side is an important piece. What makes it difficult with ISIS, if those who are willing to become suicide bombers and kill themselves, it will be hard to take those to account but what is important really to do the community prevention side so that that ideology, that mindset will not flourish. I could take 15 seconds on this, I agree. But it's a false dichotomy to say there's killing the perpetrators and the potential perpetrators and then there's the civil society building changing minds pluralism and I'm not involved in the planning but it is worth figuring out is there a way of disrupting the activity that allows the sexual slavery because that is a lesson from the human trafficking world that you can not only change minds but disrupt the actual networks. As far as the question going, those females who come from the West, we do have also experience, difficult experience from cases of atrocities disentangling who is a victim, who's a collaborator and that's a difficult matter but for justice and for how to deal with this differentiating between those two cases is essential. We're right now trying to figure out why it is some people are recruited to go but that will be a reverse engineering question of looking at, was someone actually a victim or in fact a collaborator. You know I met mothers in Sweden and in Jordan mothers whose daughters had gone to John Isis. I met a woman in Sweden whose daughter went. She just could not believe that the daughter went off her free will. She traveled all the way to Turkey and the daughter got wind that she was in Turkey so the daughter called and said to her, please, please don't come. We have so many parents in prison in Raqqa who actually came to retrieve their children. Yes, so now they have this network of mothers whose children actually run off and join Isis and they are working together campaigning to educate other women how to sense the signal, how to know that your child is being recruited privately, how to stop it. So they form a very strong network. I met them in Jordan and I met them in Sweden. It's a big challenge because some of the girls went willingly and I always say when I talk about, as I say it's a one-way ticket because they build this fantasy of a society where women have freedom where you can do this and everything and those women who have been restricted in their homes, you know, they are educated, they have access to the internet, they are locked up in their houses, see this as a way of exercising their freedom. So they build a very rosy picture about women's freedom because they have 100% women police. They have internet café man by women who they put to recruit other women. That's what we found out because there are these young educated professional girls who go in and they sit 24 hours to target other girls, to recruit them and to build this fantasy of a free society of what you can do when you're there and these girls get in ties and they join in. So it's a big challenge. So in a way they are victims, but they are perpetrators. How do you deal with them if they, very few of the girls have come back, the men's have come back because they send them to come and commit a lot of atrocities but we really do not have a lot of evidence, I don't know, because we haven't done a study of girls really coming out. And we will hope to see. They probably don't let them go really. Okay. Right here and right over here with mad on the tie. And we'll get you after, yeah. Right here with the tie. This, yeah. This woman first, yeah. Good afternoon, my name is Toni Laramore and I'm with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. So what does it look like to prioritize sexual violence whenever it just seems like there's this long laundry list of crimes and other acts of terrorism that's being committed by ISIS and other organizations? Okay, prioritization and, sorry. Thank you. My name is Dakhil Sharma, I work for Western America. Since there's a talk about the liberation of Mosul and everybody knows that there are more than 3,000 Yazidi girls and children still under ISIS captivity. So, and we're talking about actions. My question is, since you are close to the government or the authorities, is there any plan or let's put it this way, what advice you give to the government to make sure that those girls and children will be rescued if there is, if the Mosul liberation start? Thank you. That's a good point that when they have the liberation some of these girls might be killed, not necessarily freed. And why don't we just take this gentleman behind him too? Yes, so my name's John Elliott, I'm with the Department of State. So we've heard a lot about how social media is being used in trafficking and in the slavery market of women and girls. I'm curious what is being done with social media to create some sort of counter activities to mess up their activities, to create some disruption of their patterns and to do some psychological type of warfare using social media? Well, maybe that's something the State Department could also, anyone who's watching. Okay, let's, yeah, why don't you start, Mark? I appreciate the question of the panoply of crimes and atrocities and how do you prioritize among refugees and migrants to help them? And let's all first say, we've gotta get the number that is accepted in Western societies and all societies, overall of refugees who are led in to be higher. You have to do that before you get to who comes in first. It may be that it may help in some societies, sadly, that the prioritization will help raise the overall number, and I just, you know, note that. On social media, I just, I know that people think about disrupting networks and the criminal networks parallel and psiops, as it used to be more commonly called, in terms of getting in the head of the violent extremists. But shouldn't this be part of the counter, we hear so much about CVE countering violent extremism. Shouldn't this be part of it? It should, but my point is, we ought to think about the message of pluralism and tolerance, that we ought to, in fact, not be crafting, you know, clever, cunning messages. We need to be trying to reach out to people to say, this is violative of your culture. This is violative of your own religion. Really painting a picture of just how heinous this is. That's, I think, the best way to use social media. I don't know how far we've gotten on that. With regards to the social media, we definitely have written to everybody, all the government and the anti-ISIL coalition, that the social media is the oxygen of ISO. And the only way you can suffocate them is actually making sure you find a way of depriving them using it. I mean, we don't control it. So we've made it very clear, we've given instances of how they use it to buy gas, to sell gas, that's your market and everything. So that's the responsibility of the member states and we're working on putting pressure. On the issue of the gas in Mosul, I just sent a message to my colleague, SRSG in Iraq, specifically that issue, that we have about over 3,000 girls and actions that we think should be done and support that needs to be given to them and how they can be identified. So we're thinking about it. We hope that he will be able to discuss it with the Iraqi government and the parties on the ground as soon as the operation takes on. This morning I was at the State Department. I also raised it with our colleagues there. So it's something we're working on. We don't know how we can succeed, but at least we've put it on the table and we'll continue monitoring it. There is a lot of talk about the day after and how to take care of all the displaced people and all, but I'm just wondering if the victims aspect, some of these girls that could be rescued or could be free. We, as I said, I did a note. Do you feel that that's already being in the mindset? No, definitely not. I mean, from my experience working, when I visited the Middle East, I think that one of the experience I learned is that in a lot of refugee areas, the UNHCR isn't a forefront because they receive the refugees and because the UNHCR is so been trained to actually know, to identify victim because of the questions they ask. But in this part of the world, security is a priority. Well, and also probably food, shelter, those type of things, those immediate needs. The UNHCR does not receive. The military receives the people. And so, for example, in Jordan, what we have done is to actually do training for the military to train them to be able to discuss that issue. So that's the same that is going to happen in Iraq. We don't have no time to train the Iraqi military because the Iraqi military are the one who goes in. So they are the front line of receiving. So that's what is actually, that's what's our concern. How do they know who is victim, who is not? I mean, because they are not trained for that. So we are trying to work with the humanitarian colleagues on the ground so how they can work with them to be able to make sure these girls are actually retrieved. We know most of them are going to be taken to Raqqa. That is sure, you know, and then of course out. We don't know, but we're hoping that for anyone who is there, who is a victim, they'll be able to have the support that they need. Okay, we have some questions in the back and we'll then we'll work our way forward. This woman, the blonde woman in the back? Yes. Yes, you. And over here, the gentleman in the last row. Or is it a woman? I can't see that far. Yeah, hi, sorry, sorry. Yes. Sorry, no, it's my eyesight, it's not you. With a bun on my head. I just saw some air above me. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I'm Musu Clemens. I'm a technical director at MSI, but before that I ran the largest CBE program of the U.S. government in Sub-Saharan Africa into Sahel. And I can tell you that we didn't program for sexual slavery as part of our CBE response. But I wonder if we examine the legal framework in the Middle East in Sub-Saharan Africa that protects or purports to protect the rights of women. It's not a stretch for me that we have sexual slavery. And I'm wondering as part of the UN response and the coalition, anti-ISIS coalition, what are we doing to address the legal framework protecting the rights of females? Okay, ma'am. Yes, thank you. I'd like to ask about the economics of this. To what extent is the sexual slavery in ISIS remunerative and is it a variable? Or is the sexual slavery used primarily as a factor in a war of attrition against the minorities? Okay, and then to the young man next to you, have a question? Yeah, why don't you just... Yes, I'm sorry. Hello, my name's Gary Clark. I'm from ICRD, International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. And mine goes along with her question. We are doing also a lot of programming with CBE. But not specifically towards sexual violence. So what can NGOs that don't necessarily specifically program for the stuff they're doing in areas where this is actually happening? Okay, we're gonna just fold a couple more. And the gentleman in front of you had a question too. Let's just add. Hi, yes, thank you. I'm Gabriel, also with the DOD. You mentioned some aspects that allows you to single out what does an ISIS human trafficker look like. So there are these online forums, there are marketplaces, there are doctors who get drugs. I was wondering if you could just elaborate that more. How does an ISIS sex slave trafficker look different from just another ISIS member in Raqqa or Mosul? Okay, great. Zaynab, why don't you start with the economics and a little bit of the UN response and then we can talk about the NGOs? Well, I think with regards to the legal framework, it's very difficult because I always say a country that does not respect its women in peacetime cannot protect them in conflict. And in my office, we have what's called the team of experts. These are legal people, framework, they work. And so one of the biggest problems we have even under normal circumstances in the country where we have sexual violence, DRC and the others. The first thing we have discovered is that when you come to the issue of justice, when you come to the issue of justice and prosecution, the law is not in line with international criminal law. So the first thing we try to do is try to change it, whether it's in Colombia, you know. So it's a big problem in this country whose legal framework is based on the Sharia law. This is the issue where we have children who are stateless because you can only register the birth of a child through the father. So obviously, and so this is the reason why at the regional level with our work with the League of Arab States is to work with them to actually have a legal framework that we can use to apply in the other countries because we can't be able to do this country by country. So we're working with the Arab League to be able to have a sample of legal something that we can use. So we know it's a big problem and it's a big problem. In addition to that, one of the things we have succeeded in doing within the UN is to put the protection and empowerment of women into the plan of action of the Council of Violence Extremism in the UN. And so in all of the parties we are working with we are encouraging them, it's also in my statement, to be able to make sure in the national strategy and regional strategy to embed the protection and empowerment of women. So the gender issue, so obviously if you want to protect my final law doesn't allow you, you have to go to the law. So the legal is a big problem. So we're working towards... Mark, can you take the economic question? Yes. How profitable is this in terms for fueling ISIS in terms of obviously... I mentioned those two dimensions. Thank you, Michelle, for that question. You know, that there is the spoils of war element that you describe or the purposeful, targeted dehumanization of the enemy that's sort of part of the war and then there's the remunerative part. The former is the bigger part. But let's recognize that this is something used also to fund operations. Criminal enterprise. Yeah. And they're the FARC drug trafficking parallel pertains. I just want to say a quick word about law in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Middle East and North Africa. I agree. There's a very corrosive debate in the United States today politically that sort of suggests that the problem is Islam. The problem is violent extremists and how they interpret Islam. But Islamic law does create an enabling environment for women not only to not own property but be treated as property. And that is a problem for in wartime than being protected. Sir, why don't you pick up on what NGOs can do and also what is the ISIS sex trafficker look like? I know you don't look like him. Quickly actually on the civil society and the legal side. And I think I'd like to take a step back and the issue of women and treatment of women is not just what ISIS did. Early 2014 the Iraqi Council of Ministers passed a law that would allow women to be read at age nine. I mean that is a legal framework that you want to fight tooth and nail. And this may sound like a broken record where this is a mindset and interpretation of things kick in. And it is those people who you need to apply pressure on not to follow this path. And civil society I think has done a great job in the sense that putting pressure on the Iraqi government for the Iraqi parliament not to pass that law. So legislation while it could be helpful for women, it could also hurt them when there is bad legislation. So civil society can play a huge role in that side. Civil society has played and could play a positive role in direct support of the victims. They could support the society to heal and take the conversation to the next step. The kind of reconciliation work that USIP does is led by civil society. They engage government in a collaborative relationship. So there's a lot for civil society to play a role. The kinetic operations and all of this is important and it happens to take the significant portion of resources. The civil society portion, the most long lasting and probably the most cost effective receives the least attention. So I think this is an area that the international community could play a role. So in terms of the economics very quickly also to my knowledge they generate some revenue from it but compared to the other revenue streams of ISIS like oil and the cash they had and the artifacts this is not major. And I just think just an answer of what you know the typical kind of trafficker looks like I think as Zayna was saying like there is no typical person. Some of these women are being even asked to recruit people and internet cafes so it seems as if it's a more kind of systematic process. It's a policy. The thing about this is that for ISIS this is a policy. They created the law by the fatwa. They created the policy. They develop a manual. They created in fact there's a bureau for marriage which is the bureau that actually helps to buy this gas or sell them. So they created the entire spectrum of how you handle this. So it's not accidental. It's something they plan because they know exactly it means a lot to them. It helps them and they use it to entice men to say oh come you have virgin tears. You can have two, three wives. It's a way of recruiting and also unfortunately on the issue of income generated he raised a lot of money because you know three thousand, ten thousand. ISIS raised hundreds of thousands. Some people say millions of money through the sale of these gods because the girls were not sold within ISIS. They actually from some of the girls I interviewed people come from outside. So we are talking about three thousand. Yes it is unaccounted. We don't know whether those three thousand I feel in Iraq or Syria. We don't know which parts of the world they have taken them. So actually for them it's something that they plan. It's a way to raise money to get this girl. So nobody knows what's happened. Some of the girls we don't know whether they are dead. We don't know how many of them have been taken out of the country. We only know when the conflict ends. Unfortunately we're out of time. My one role as a moderator is to end us on time. So I'd like to thank my panel very much. Dana, Mark, Sahang, and thank you. Thank you to everybody who is watching on our webcast and to the McCain Institute, Mrs. McCain and USIP. I'd like to invite you all to the reception that will be following our event. And we could continue the discussion further. Obviously we raised a lot of good food for thought in terms of how we can help not just raise attention to the issue but find solutions for the victims and prevention. Thank you.