Rape, torture and sex slavery: Report reveals Islamic State's treatment of female Yazidi captives

Hundreds of women and girls as young as 10 have been subjected to a brutal regime of rape, torture and sex slavery by Islamic State militants, a report by Amnesty International has claimed.

The international human rights watchdog carried out interviews with more than 40 former captives from the Yazidi community who had managed to escape after the extremists invaded their hometown of Sinjar in August.

Many of them say they were forced to marry militants, raped and beaten - while others revealed fellow captives had committed suicide to avoid being sold or given as a "gift".

The Yazidis are a centuries-old religious minority, whose faith contains elements of Christianity, Judiaism and various other ancient religions.

They have suffered persecution for generations because of their beliefs, painted by some Muslim fundamentalists as "devil worship" - a claim the Yazidis strongly dispute.

When Islamic State militants advanced on Mount Sinjar over the summer, they took hundreds - potentially thousands - of the Yazidis captive, while thousands more fled and took refuge in the mountains.

The captured men were slaughtered or forced to convert to Islam under the threat of death, while the women were faced with sexual captivity.

Many of those who "bought" the women were IS fighters, while some were supporters.

The report claims others were simply businessmen in the area.

Statements from documents claiming to be official Islamic State publications describe their policy of submitting the Yazidi women to sex slavery, defending it as a "firmly established" aspect of Sharia law.

One document even permits its fighters to engage in sexual activity with pre-pubescent girls.

Some of the captives told Amnesty International that they were actually treated well. They were kept with their captors' wives, children and other relatives, and some said they were only registered as "wives" so they could stay together as a group. These men, they said, did not abuse them and spent most of their time away from home, fighting.

Several said they owed their lives to one of the fighters' wives, who helped them escape.

One 13-year-old girl was held with her sister, who was a toddler, and praised her captor as her saviour.