Australia Just Charged Two Women With Owning Yazidi Sex Slaves: 25 Years Per Charge as the Western World Finally Wakes Up to Female ISIS War Criminals

Kawsar Abbas, 53, and Zeinab Ahmad, 31, Charged Under Crimes Against Humanity Division 268 as Sweden, Germany, France, and the Netherlands Continue Building Cases Against the Women Who Ran Caliphate Slave Markets

Australia has just done what most Western governments have spent a decade refusing to do. On 25 May 2026, federal prosecutors charged two women, Kawsar Abbas, 53, and Zeinab Ahmad, 31, with enslavement, slave possession, slave use, and slave trading in connection with the Islamic State's systematic abduction and rape of Yazidi women and children beginning in 2014. A third woman faces related terror offences. Each charge carries a maximum 25 year sentence under Australia's Criminal Code Division 268, which covers crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

For more than a decade, the Yazidi community has begged Western nations to prosecute the women who enabled their genocide. The men get headlines. The women, the Al Khansa brigade enforcers, the household slave owners, the brothel managers, have largely walked free.

How ISIS Built an Industrial Sex Slavery System That Used Female Operatives

When ISIS invaded northern Iraq in August 2014, the militants did not improvise their treatment of the Yazidis. They built a bureaucracy. Captive women were registered in ledgers. Sales contracts were drawn up. Religious manuals were printed explaining how to govern captive ownership and trade under their reading of Islamic law. The all female Al Khansa brigade enforced dress codes and controlled female captives. Some women reportedly operated brothels stocked with Yazidi girls and boys.

The case Western prosecutors keep building against this network is gradually establishing precedent. A German court convicted Jennifer W. in 2023 for the death of a five year old Yazidi girl named Reda, who was chained outside in 122 degree heat by Jennifer W's husband while her enslaved mother watched helplessly. Reda died. After appeal, Jennifer W's sentence was increased to 14 years. Sweden, the Netherlands, and France have all pursued similar cases. Swedish courts sentenced Lina Ishaq to 12 years for enslaving three Yazidi women and six children between 2014 and 2016.

Why Australia Has Now Joined the Prosecution Network

Australian intelligence and federal police have spent years gathering evidence on returnees from the caliphate, leveraging digital records seized from ISIS, Yazidi survivor testimony, and forensic accounting of Al Khansa brigade movements. The Australian charges are the result of patient evidence work, not political theatre.

Yazidi advocacy organisations have welcomed the announcement. They have also asked the obvious next question. Britain, Canada, and the United States have hundreds of caliphate returnees living openly in their territories. How many of them are women who participated in slave trading? How many will ever face a courtroom?

The Crusader's Opinion

The Yazidi genocide was a defining moral test of the 2010s. Western governments largely failed it. Thousands of Yazidi women were sold, raped, broken, and murdered while the world looked away. Tens of thousands of survivors still live in tents. Australia has now stepped up. Two women face 25 years per charge. Every Christian who cares about justice for the Yazidi people, and the Yazidis are themselves a religious minority that ISIS treated almost identically to Iraqi and Syrian Christians, should welcome this prosecution and demand similar action across the Anglosphere. The blood of Yazidi girls cries out. The Australian courts have finally heard it.

Take Action

• Donate: Yazda, the global Yazidi advocacy organisation
• Read: Reports from the UN Investigative Team UNITAD on ISIS crimes
• Contact: Your government demanding parallel prosecutions of female caliphate returnees
• Pray: For Yazidi survivors and for the soul of Reda, the little girl chained in the heat
• Share: The Australian charges and the names Abbas and Ahmad