Iraqi couple charged in Germany with physical, sexual abuse of enslaved young Yazidi girls

BERLIN — Germany’s federal prosecutor charges an Iraqi couple with enslavement, torture and war crimes, alleging they kept two young Yazidi girls as slaves and sexually and physically abused them.

The man and the woman, identified only as Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. in line with German privacy rules, were arrested in Bavaria in April.

The were members of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria between October 2015 and December 2017, the prosecutor said in a statement. They allegedly kept a 5-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave starting in late 2015, and a 12-year-old from October 2017.

Prosecutors alleged that the man raped both girls repeatedly and that the woman prepared the room and put makeup on one of the girls.

The couple also exerted “harsh physical violence” on the girls, who were prevented from practicing their own religion and coerced into household work and childcare, prosecutors said.

The man on one occasion allegedly hit the older girl with a broomstick, the woman is accused of scalding the younger girl’s hand with hot water and both children were repeatedly forced to stand on one leg for half an hour as punishment.

Before they left Syria in November 2017, the suspects handed the girls over to other members of IS, the prosecutor’s statement said.

“All of this served the organization’s objective to destroy the Yazidi religion,” the statement said.