Iraqi teen recounts being enslaved by notorious Australian ISIL militant

A teenager from an ethnic group persecuted by ISIL has detailed how she was allegedly bought for $40 and kept a slave by a schizophrenic Australian terrorist in Iraq.

The 19-year-old, who goes by the name of Kaleela but cannot be fully identified, was captured by ISIL militants last August while trying to flee the Iraqi village of Tal Qassab, News.com.au reports.

"We suffered from many inhumane acts, such as being sold as slaves. Every day men would come to buy us," the woman said.

Kaleela said she was sold to Khaled Sharrouf, a schizophrenia-addled IS member originally from Sydney who gained notoriety last year after photos of his seven-year-old son holding the severed heads of executed Islamic State prisoners appeared online.

"I was with my eleven year-old friend when we were separated and I was sold to (Sharrouf) for 40,000 Iraqi dinar ($42)," Kaleela said.

"He told me, 'you are going to be my Nikah,' the term used by ISIS for marrying the girls they have enslaved, because they own them. The rest of (the girls) were to be his servants," Kaleela said.

"I told him, 'we are like your daughters, how can you do this to us?'

"He got very angry with me and shouted, 'I have bought you to marry me, not to be like my daughter'."

After Sharroud left to fight Syrian rebels, help came from an unlikely source.

A woman believed to be Sharrouf’s wife helped the enslaved women make a phone call to their parents, who came in the dead of night to rescue them.

Dressed in IS garb, they made it through a series of checkpoints before making it to Kurdistan, outside of ISIL control.

Kaleela's story only emerged through the work of criminal lawyer and member of Kurdish Genocide Taskforce Hugo Charlton, who obtained her story from Iraqi colleagues.

"Some two to four thousand Yazidi women have been enslaved and abused in captivity," Mr Charlton said.

"Alleged perpetrators like Khaled Sharrouf must be brought to justice to end the culture of impunity surrounding crimes of sexual violence in conflict."