Ashwaq Ta’lo was enslaved by ISIS in 2014 — specifically by a man named Abu Humam, whom she alleges abused her every day for almost a year. She escaped to Germany, only to come face to face with her captor three years later.
Ashwaq told her story to InfoMigrants, a news site about migration run by DW, France Medias Monde and Italy’s ANSA agency.
This is Ashwaq, a Yazidi girl who was kidnapped by ISIS in 2014 when the terrorist group attacked Kurdistan-Iraq. After her escape and her migration to Germany, she met the man who had bought her as a slave, walking around freely in Germany. This is unacceptable! pic.twitter.com/rIYYhP9nmQ
— Polla Garmiany (@PollaGarmiany) August 14, 2018
Ashwaq explained that, while in captivity, she had promised to convert to Islam and pray five times a day. Her captors, in turn, promised not to hurt her — but she says that they lied. “I did all that because he promised not to hurt me,” she explained. “But he abused me for more than 10 months every single day.”
She was in shock when she saw Abu Humam on the street in Germany three years later and he approached her. “I ran away from Iraq so I would not see that ugly face and forget anything that reminds me of it, but I was shocked to see him in Germany. The first time was in 2016. He was chasing me. He was the same person, but the second time, he came close to me and told me he knew everything about me.”
Ashwaq said that when he approached, he threatened her, saying, “I am Abu Humam and you were with me for a while in Mosul. And I know where you live, with whom you live, and what you are doing.”
To make matters worse, when Ashwaq reported the incident to an asylum official and the police, they informed her that because he too was a registered refugee, there was nothing that they could do.
Terrified that she would meet him on the street again, Ashwaq fled Germany and returned to Kurdistan to live with her father. “I can never go back,” she said, admitting that she wished things were different. “If I had not seen him, I would have stayed in Germany. I wanted to complete my studies and get a degree that would give me a decent life.”
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