A video claiming to depict the sale of women as slaves in an Iraqi market has been circulating on social media platform Facebook. However, verification reveals that the footage does not depict an actual scene of human trafficking but is instead part of a theatrical performance.

The video, shared with the caption, “This is how women were sold as slaves in Iraqi markets. Alhamdulillah 🤲🤲. When will it be available in the markets of East Pakistan?” (original spelling retained), shows an elderly man lifting the veils of several women standing in a row, observing their faces, and then lowering the veils again. According to the post’s claim, women are being sold as commodities in Iraqi markets.

An investigation into the video's origin led to a 2023 fact-check report by the Indian verification agency Alt News, published by Dismiss Lab. The report states that this same video was widely circulated on social media in 2023 with similar claims. According to the findings, the footage is part of a theatrical performance by artist Aryan Rafiq, titled "The Unheard Screams of the Yazidkhan Angels". 

Aryan Rafiq, identified as a Kurdish artist from Iraqi Kurdistan, confirmed to Alt News that the video was filmed in a market in Erbil. The performance was based on the experiences of Yazidi Kurdish women who were subjected to sexual violence and sold in slave markets by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Mosul and Raqqa in 2014. The artist highlighted how ISIS militants impregnated thousands of these women, leaving their futures uncertain. The play aimed to depict the harsh realities of these women’s lives. It was performed in Erbil’s marketplace, where someone recorded the scene and later shared it on social media. In other words, the video is not an actual event but a dramatized representation.

There have been multiple reports on ISIS’s practice of selling Yazidi women as slaves. A study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism states that after capturing Yazidi-populated areas, ISIS militants imprisoned Yazidi women and subjected them to sexual violence. The study explains that after attacking a village, ISIS typically separated men from women, executing males aged 14 and older while selling the women in markets, where younger and more attractive women fetched the highest prices.

A similar theatrical performance portraying ISIS’s enslavement of women was staged in London in 2014 by the group "Compassion for Kurdistan". The BBC also covered the production in a report at the time.

Original News Source: https://dismislab.com/others/video-of-street-theater-iraq/