Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
The chilling reality of life for Christian and Yazidi women in ISIS controlled territory comes to light in a newly uncovered document that reveals the price the terrorists are demanding for the sale of its war “spoils”.
Aleteia.org/ar is reporting on the document, which is titled “Prices stipulated for the selling of spoils (i.e. women and children who have been abducted).”
Apparently, ISIS fighters put the highest premium on children, demanding 200 thousand dinar ($165 USD) for girls age one to nine years.
Tweens and teens who are between 10 and 20 years of age are the next highest category and are being sold for 150 thousand dinar ($127 USD).
Compared to these prices, women age 40 to 50 years are a real “bargain” at just 50 thousand dinar ($42 USD).
Women aged 30 to 40 years reap 75 thousand dinar ($63 USD) and women 20 to 30 years can be sold at 100 thousand dinar ($85 USD).
The document goes on to bemoan the fact that “the market for selling these spoils has declined precipitously”, causing a dip in ISIS revenues and the ability to finance the Mujahidin.
Because of this, women and children are to be sold at the above prices and anyone who violates this price list will be put to death.
Also stipulated in the document is that no one is permitted to buy more than three “spoils” except for Turks, Syrians and fighters from the Gulf States who are permitted to buy more.
It seems hard to believe that behavior such as this is permitted to take place anywhere on the earth, let alone across such a vast swath of territory in the Middle East. While world leaders dawdle away in their endless committees and study groups, thousands of women and children are living in a never-ending nightmare.
Religious intolerance is at the root of this horror – the same intolerance that is being hurled at Christians today even in the so-called “progressive” nations such as the US and Europe. Our version of this intolerance may not kill the body, but it certainly “kills” the rights of Christians. We’ve traveled far enough down this new “slippery slope” to read about Christians being stripped of their very livelihood because they refuse to accept practices that violate their beliefs. What’s next? Prosecution? Imprisonment?
This is why Pope Francis correctly cited religious intolerance – in any of its forms – as a “particularly insidious enemy” that is evident in many parts of the world today, not just the ISIS controlled areas of Iraq and Syria.
“All believers must be particularly vigilant so that, in living out with conviction our religious and ethical code, we may always express the mystery we intend to honor,” he said.
No one should use their particular belief system as a battering ram to harm others, whether that be the Mujahidin or secularists who want to ban all religion from society. Religious intolerance is the same evil, regardless of who is wielding it.
As the pope warned: “ . . . (A)ll those forms which present a distorted use of religion must be firmly refuted as false since they are unworthy of God or humanity.”
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
