ISISISIS uses Whatsapp, Telegram to sell girls and women as sex slaves

The mobile app world expands via ISIS // Source: theconversation.com

ISIS has been using instant messenger apps Whatsapp and Telegram to advertise Yazidi women and girls as young as 12 for sale as sex slaves.

These apps are also being used to share photos databases of women held by ISIS as sex slaves. ISIS uses the apps to distribute these of photographs to ISIS militants manning the group’s checkpoints so that these women can be identified if they try to escape ISIS-controlled territory.

Yahoo News notes that Telegram and Facebook-owned Whatsapp both use end-to-end encryption, preventing the two companies from accessing users’ communications. 

People who have seen the ISIS advertisement say that in many of the photos the women and girls are dressed nicely and are often heavily made-up.

Analysts estimate that about 3,000 women and girls are at present being held captive by ISIS. Many of the captive women and girls are Yezidis, taken prisoner in 2014 when ISIS fighters attacked their villages in northern Iraq.

UN investigators have concluded that the wholesale killing of the Yezidis in both Iraq and Syria, constitutes an act of genocide.

Whatsapp said they do what they can to combat extremist messaging, and that the company disables accounts once they become aware of the activity.

Matt Steinfeld, a spokesperson for Whatsapp, told the AP: “We have zero tolerance for this type of behavior and disable accounts when provided with evidence of activity that violates our terms.

“We encourage people to use our reporting tools if they encounter this type of behavior.”