A German court has jailed an Iraqi ISIS couple for enslaving and sexually abusing two Yazidi girls aged five and 12, in a case linked to the group’s campaign against the Yazidi minority. The ruling matters because it is another attempt to hold ISIS members accountable in Europe for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Iraq and Syria. It also highlights how children were targeted through rape, forced labour and religious persecution as part of ISIS rule.

The court heard that between 2015 and 2017 the couple bought the two girls as slaves, forced them to work and prevented them from practising their religion. Prosecutors said the husband repeatedly raped both girls, while the wife helped facilitate the assaults and took part in their abuse, including beatings and scalding punishments. The husband was given a life sentence and the wife was jailed for nine and a half years; as ISIS lost territory, the pair fled and later sold the girls to another ISIS member before eventually being arrested in Germany.