Adrift after enslavement, Yazidi teen says she can’t go home

By SAMYA KULLAB
Associated Press

BARZAN, Syria (AP) — Many Yazidi women who were abducted and enslaved by the Islamic State group as children have come of age during wartime. For them, liberation has spurred an identity crisis and anxiety about what comes next. Roza Barakat is one such young woman. She was 11 years old when she was taken by IS militants, along with thousands of others, when the extremists overran her hometown of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq. She was sold several times, repeatedly raped and abused. Now, eight years later, she is free but she lives her life in the shadows in Syria, afraid to go home and fearing her Yazidi community won’t accept her.