About 3,500 people, mostly women and children, are believed to be enslaved by Daesh militants, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
Daesh, which controls large parts of Iraq and Syria, is known for its gruesome public executions and has committed widespread abuses that may "in some instances, amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide," the UN report said.
The militant group regularly uses rape of captured women and girls as a tool of war, and last month released a "rape handbook" instructing militants how to treat their "sex slaves."
The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq and the UN human rights office have estimated that some 3,500 people were "currently being held in slavery by ISIL (Daesh) numbers." Among them, the women and children being held primarily come from the Yazidi community, but also belong to other ethnic and religious minorities.
