U.N. official: Islamic State has sex slaves price list

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- A price list for child sex slaves of Islamic State militants is genuine, with children under nine being sold for around $165 (USD) a United Nations official said.

An online version of the price list, available since November, has been difficult to verify, but Zainab Bangura, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sexual Violence in Conflict, confirmed its authenticity, saying in an interview she received a copy in Iraq in April, and that it reflects genuine transactions. Children captured in conflict are sold to wealthy Middle Easterners as slaves, as well as to IS members.

The going rate for IS personnel in Iraqi dinars equals about $165 for children aged one to nine, about $124 for adolescents and less for women over 20. Wealthy outsiders bid thousands of dollars and have first choice in slaves.

"The girls get peddled like barrels of petrol," Bangura told Bloomberg News. "One girl can be sold and bought by five or six different men. Sometimes these fighters sell the girls back to their families for thousands of dollars of ransom."

An IS video in 2014 presented a slave auction, with militants discussing the prices they would pay for women. An IS pamphlet from 2014 offered advice on the treatment of female slaves, using quotes from the Koran to justify rapes and beatings.

"It's not an ordinary rebel group," Bangura said of IS. "When you dismiss them as such, then you are using the tools you are used to. This is different. They have the combination of a conventional military and a well-run organized state. They have a machinery, they have a program. They have a manual on how you treat these women. They have a marriage bureau which organizes all of these 'marriages' and the sale of women. They have a price list."