VOA慢速英语：联合国称IS受害者需要得到保护

A United Nations diplomat is warning girls againstjoining the self-declared Islamic State militant group. If the girls becomemembers of the group, she says, it will be the biggest mistake in their lives.

Zainab Hawa Bangura is the UN’s Special Representatives on SexualViolence in Conflict. She recently told VOA about meeting women and girlswho have survived unspeakable abuses by the militants.

The Islamic State uses social media in its effort at persuading men andwomen to join the group, also known as ISIS. It urges them to reject theirfamilies and join their movement in Syria and Iraq. But many who do join soondiscover it is not what they thought it would be.

UN diplomat Zainab Hawa Bangura has met some of those who regretted theirdecision.

“ISIS is aone-way ticket -- you go there and, you know, you can’t come outagain.”

Ms. Bangura says that is especially true for women and girls. She says eventhose who voluntarily join ISIS are victims and need as much support as thosewho are kidnapped by the group.

Ms. Bangura recently visited refugee camps in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. She met women who survived Islamic State kidnappings and sexual violence.

“When I came back I felt so heartbroken I just wept myself to sleep.”

The Yazidi community has been especially affected. A new U.N. report saysthe Islamic State group continues to hold as many as 3,500 Yazidis. It saysthey have faced physical and sexual abuse.

The diplomat says that when the kidnappings began, many of the capturedYazidi women killed themselves.

“I met a woman who actually was captured with 14 girls who actually mixedthe poison and gave it to the 14 girls to commit suicide.”

She says others hanged themselves or cut their wrists. Some were soldrepeatedly. The price for some women was a box of cigarettes.

Many victims turn to their spiritual beliefs to forget the violence becausemental health experts and social services are not widely available.

Ms. Bangura says many of the younger girls just want to go back to school. She told them the best way for them to get back at ISIS would be to succeedin life.

I’m Jim Tedder.

VOA’s correspondent Margaret Besheer reported on this story from theUnited Nations. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted it for Learning English.George Grow was the editor.

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Words in This Story

one-way ticket– n. idiomatic – permission to travel to a place but not backfrom the place

heartbroken– adj. filled with great sadness

poison– n. a substance that can cause people or animals to die or tobecome very sick if it gets into their bodies, especially by being swallowed