Hengelo woman sentenced to 10 years in prison for enslaving a Yazidi woman in Syria

For the first time in the Netherlands, a Dutch woman has been convicted of slavery, classified as a crime against humanity by the court in The Hague. Hasna A., a 33-year-old ISIS bride from Hengelo, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for membership in the terrorist organization, endangering her minor child, and enslaving a Yazidi woman. The sentence is two years higher than what the Public Prosecution Service (OM) demanded.

Hasna A. left for Syria with her then-4-year-old disabled son in 2015, where she married an ISIS jihadist and had more children. She was eventually repatriated by the Dutch government from a prison camp in November 2022 as part of a group of 12 women and their 28 children. She has been detained in a special section of the Zwolle penitentiary since. Her four children are being cared for together at a place of safety.

Two Yazidi women who were held in the caliphate have testified that A. enslaved them, forcing them to do household work and care for her disabled child. The court convicted her of enslaving one woman while she stayed at the home of another ISIS jihadist between May and October 2015. There was insufficient evidence to prove the second count of enslavement.

The enslaved woman was captured during ISIS attacks in the area around Mount Sinjar in August 2014. Yazidi men and boys who refused to convert to Islam were executed and thousands of Yazidi women and girls were enslaved. “Due to the systematic nature of this, the court has classified the attack on the Yazidi and the enslavement of Yazidi women as a crime against humanity,” the court said.

During the trial, A. denied enslaving the Yazidi women. She said she knew that the women were held against their will and forced to work, but that she never gave them orders. She also denied knowing that the Yazidi women were forced to have sex with ISIS men. But the court did not believe this.

“The Dutch woman knew about the attack and ISIS practices and did nothing to ease the life of the enslaved Yazidi woman. On the contrary. The Dutch woman gave the Yazidi woman orders to do household work and to take care of her son. The suspect did this knowing that what happened in the house was part of a larger whole, the widespread and systematic attack on the Yazidi community,” the court said. “The court holds this against the suspect very seriously. Crimes against humanity such as these are among the most serious international crimes there are.

The court also convicted A. of being a member of a terrorist organization, promoting the commission of terrorist crimes, and endangering her disabled son by taking him into a warzone.