Life is hard, and injustice rules the world. You want to be part of the action that rights the wrongs. You are so ready to join a family of like-minded youth. Yup, I’m an old lady, but I totally get that. In fact, that’s exactly why I wrote you and your friends an open letter to disillusioned teenage girls.
I’m not writing to tell you not to go. I only want you to have the full story before you make the final decision to leave the home and country you’ve known. You’re close enough to those adult years to gather all the facts and make up your own mind. I know you don’t believe every tweet—Duh!—but some contain half-truths that only those who’ve been there can uncover.
Two days ago, I thought of you while listening to a fifteen-year-old girl who had been a part of ISIS. She said that the ISIS men take away all of the girls’ personal things right away. Be suspicious of what you read, because it’s not the teens tweeting or posting on their Facebook accounts. It’s the ISIS guys.
Before the soldiers forced this girl to marry one of their leaders, five men raped her. She listened to her thirteen-year-old sister scream for hours in the room next to her, so the adolescent knew that the same horror had befallen the younger girl. Her little sister hung herself that night.
During the interview, the teen said the ISIS men only kept a wife for a few days. Then, he divorced her and passed her to another man who claimed her as his wife for another few days. The promise of a big house and servants didn’t mention that the girls are, in fact, the servants, as well as sex slaves. They rarely get to eat anything in order to keep them too weak to resist their captors.
The adolescent’s escape came during an evening of militant feasting and drinking. Believing the few girls too feeble to flee, a lone guard had been left to watch them. As soon as he fell asleep, the girls escaped, ending up on the grounds of a nonprofit organization that whisked them off to England.
Having recovered from her ordeal, the teen is now speaking in assemblies of kids to reveal the real truth of life in the ISIS family. Her hope is that the girls will believe it can happen to them and stay home.
Last week, this brave teen shared her story with the student body of the high school attended by the girls in this next story.
You may have heard about three sixteen-year-old British girls who ran away from their families last February. They had a hard road to get to ISIS, but eventually they made it. Immediately upon arrival, each teen was married off to one of the ISIS leaders, without the girls’ consent.
By mid-May, the disillusioned girls had fled their captors. ISIS is searching for them. Not just their families are praying that the European allies will find them before their ISIS husbands.
Last year two girls, ages fifteen and sixteen, ran away from their Austrian homes. The recruiter promised the teens all sorts of adventure and rewards for joining ISIS. ISIS even made a recruitment poster of the two teens holding automatic weapons; it’s the last photo ever seen of the pair.
During the investigation initiated by their parents, the police uncovered a lot of expensive goods and cash in the recruiter’s apartment. Months later, the sixteen-year-old died in battle in Syria. Her younger friend cannot be located at this time. ISIS is also looking for her.
Parents and law enforcement authorities saved one Colorado teen from leaving the States to join ISIS. Perhaps you’re amongst the disgruntled adolescents who booed the pigs who interfered with the girl’s free-will choice.
I can understand your take on the adult intervention. However, if the same fate awaited the Colorado girl as the European teens, she may have been spared the ISIS family reality. Arresting her before she fled America interrupted her forced marriage to a gang of rapists. She missed out on the cruel beatings so much a part of the standard punishment for every Muslim woman who disagrees with her husband on any issue.
I’ve lived in a Muslim country for nearly twenty-five years. I’ve seen girls beaten because they didn’t want to marry their grandfather’s elderly friend—an agreement made at her birth. Husbands and brothers have the right to beat their wives and sisters for any disagreement. A woman has no rights at all.
If you think I’m exaggerating or that I’ve misunderstood the value ISIS places on their female recruits, I would ask you one question. If life with ISIS will be so great for you on this earth, why is it that the only mention of reward in Paradise is for each man to be given seventy virgins? There’s nothing offered to the women, except to be a man’s sex slave, even in Paradise.
ISIS never tried to disguise their hatred of Americans and Europeans. Your only value to them is murdering other Americans and Europeans. What do you get out of that? You die, or you spend the rest of your life in prison for assisting the men who sent you out to die.
I can tell you honestly, girls, I care about you. I pray for you often. You are the future of your countries. We need you. We need your energy and your commitment to change our world for the better. You can make a difference without being forced into a brutal marriage or strapping on a vest of explosives.
Well, that’s it. I offer you an open letter to disillusioned teenage girls. If I knew your name, and the names of your girlfriends, I’d put each one at the top of the letter. I want you to take my letter personally.
Now, the ball’s in your court. Think about what you’ve just read. Check it out for yourself by simply Googling “girls join ISIS” and see what else you can find. There’s a lot out there to sift through on your way to deciding.
I wish you all the very best,
A senior citizen who loves teens
P.S. If you’d like me to pray for you, or one of your friends, by name, just send me a tweet with your first name. You can tweet more if you like, but I’ll know what you mean if I just read a name. (@DannieHawley)
