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The Australian ISIS bride accused of enslaving a 9-year-old · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, October 28, 2026. Among the many revolting crimes
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  Speaker 1: of the failed Islamist movement ISIS was the enslavement and
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  Speaker 1: mistreatment of women and girls. They are Yazidis, a long-persecuted
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  Speaker 1: ethnic minority. Now, a Yazidi woman says she was enslaved
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  Speaker 1: and raped as a nine-year-old girl in the house of
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  Speaker 1: an Australian woman, Hoden Abbey. Abbey is still stranded in
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  Speaker 1: the Middle East and wants to come home. Her alleged
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  Speaker 1: victim wants us to hold Abbey to account. That's today's story.
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  Speaker 2: Awful, tragic news from overseas late today. It's about an
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  Speaker 2: American journalist named James Foley beheaded by ISIS militants in
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  Speaker 2: a graphic video that's been.
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  Speaker 3: Posted on the web.
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  Speaker 1: So a man being thrown from a building. He was
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  Speaker 1: also then stoned to death. His alleged crime, being gay.
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  Speaker 2: And more examples of their inhumanity are on display. They
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  Speaker 2: have executed a Jordanian Air Force pilot by burning him alive.
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  Speaker 2: Releasing a chilling video of Christians executed in a mass beheading.
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  Speaker 1: Amanda Hodge is The Australian's Asia-Pacific correspondent and she's been
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  Speaker 1: reporting on the case of a woman she's given the
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  Speaker 1: name Aisha. That's not her real name. She's a young
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  Speaker 1: Yazidi woman who says she was enslaved and beaten as
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  Speaker 1: a nine-year-old by an Australian. Amanda, tell me how you
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  Speaker 1: came across Aisha and why she's decided to tell you
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  Speaker 1: her story.
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  Speaker 4: Hi, Claire. I have been in touch for quite a
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  Speaker 4: long time with a UN human rights investigator. We've already
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  Speaker 4: spoken to a young woman who has alleged she was
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  Speaker 4: enslaved in the home of Kausar and Zainab Abbas, who
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  Speaker 4: are currently going through the Australian courts right now, who
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  Speaker 4: have already returned. And this is another woman, again, a
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  Speaker 4: very young woman, actually. She's only 20 now. But at
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  Speaker 4: the time, she says she was held captive. in this
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  Speaker 4: house in Raqqa, which was the capital of the Syrian
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  Speaker 4: ISIS caliphate. She was nine, just nine years old.
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  Speaker 1: It's a horrendous story and it's kind of emblematic of
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  Speaker 1: what happened to thousands of Yazidi women when the ISIS caliphate,
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  Speaker 1: so-called caliphate, kind of swept across the region.
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  Speaker 3: The last known Islamic State-linked Australian woman in Syria, Hodan Abbey,
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  Speaker 3: allegedly acted as an enforcer of Sharia law in the
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  Speaker 3: Kurdish detention camps, threatened other women and engaged in acts
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  Speaker 3: of violence.
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  Speaker 1: What we know about Hodan Abbey is that when she
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  Speaker 1: was 18 in December 2014, she left her home in
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  Speaker 1: Western Sydney, told her family she was going on a holiday,
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  Speaker 1: actually crossed into Syria to join ISIS and she resisted
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  Speaker 1: attempts by her family to get her out or to
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  Speaker 1: find her. and then ended up detained in the Al-Raj
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  Speaker 1: camp in northeastern Syria. Tell me, what does Aisha remember
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  Speaker 1: of her time in this house?
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  Speaker 4: She remembers very clearly her time in that house because,
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  Speaker 4: as she told me, it was the first time she
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  Speaker 4: was raped. And then in the course of the five
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  Speaker 4: months that she was there, she says that happened about
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  Speaker 4: 10 times, that it was the husband of Amr Osama,
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  Speaker 4: who we believe to be Hodan Abig, that she realised
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  Speaker 4: that this little girl was being raped by her husband
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  Speaker 4: and in fact was furious about it and argued with
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  Speaker 4: her husband and told him he couldn't do that. But
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  Speaker 4: she also told this little girl that she was an
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  Speaker 4: infidel and deserved it. Now, the allegations against Ama Osama
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  Speaker 4: are that She treated this child as an unpaid worker,
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  Speaker 4: essentially a slave in the house, that she often mistreated
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  Speaker 4: her and would fly into rages, pour things from the
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  Speaker 4: refrigerator onto her when she was angry. One time she
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  Speaker 4: held a hot pan to her hand because she didn't
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  Speaker 4: like the way she cooked her eggs. The child was
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  Speaker 4: not allowed to take showers. She was beaten. She said
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  Speaker 4: she would often have bruises over her body. And other
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  Speaker 4: Yazidi women who were enslaved and whose captors were linked
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  Speaker 4: to that family have given evidence to that effect also.
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  Speaker 4: So she remembers very clearly the time in that house.
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  Speaker 4: She says after Osama told her husband she couldn't rape her,
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  Speaker 4: he used to take her to the home of a
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  Speaker 4: friend of his to do what he wanted with her.
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  Speaker 1: It's an interesting kind of new perspective or different perspective
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  Speaker 1: on the behaviour of Australian women within the Caliphate, isn't it?
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  Speaker 1: I think they're often framed as either vulnerable young women
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  Speaker 1: who were groomed or who were taken against their will
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  Speaker 1: into a war zone, or they're framed as kind of
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  Speaker 1: ideological extremists who themselves believed in the nonsense that the
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  Speaker 1: Caliphate was spouting. What we're seeing here is perhaps the
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  Speaker 1: allegation is that this is someone who was in a
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  Speaker 1: very domestic, a small domestic setting, kind of using her
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  Speaker 1: power over this child as an abuser, right?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, she paints a picture of a very conflicted
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  Speaker 4: young woman, this Umm Osama, who rose at 4am to
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  Speaker 4: pray every day, but would sometimes leave the house without
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  Speaker 4: a hijab on, you know, without a head covering, which
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  Speaker 4: would have been absolutely out of the question in the
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  Speaker 4: ISIS caliphate. who would defy her husband on occasions, who
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  Speaker 4: would speak on an iPad during the day for hours
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  Speaker 4: at a time to friends, and who tried on several
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  Speaker 4: occasions to actually escape the caliphate. On one occasion, this
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  Speaker 4: little girl, Aisha, was in the taxi with her. They
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  Speaker 4: were returning from a friend's house, and she told me
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  Speaker 4: that Amosama tried to convince the taxi driver to take
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  Speaker 4: her over the border to Turkey, It's not clear if
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  Speaker 4: she would have taken the little girl with her or not.
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  Speaker 4: But what is clear is that she clearly felt trapped
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  Speaker 4: and was unhappy in the caliphate. I don't think that
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  Speaker 4: in any way negates the treatment that this young woman
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  Speaker 4: suffered at the hands of her captors. But it is
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  Speaker 4: a complex picture. And this woman, if it was indeed
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  Speaker 4: Hoda Nabi and all evidence points very convincingly to the
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  Speaker 4: fact that it is, then she was obviously in a
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  Speaker 4: very difficult situation herself and punching down, as they say.
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  Speaker 1: She's now still in this camp. She's living with her
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  Speaker 1: disabled daughter, who is disabled because she suffered some shrapnel injuries.
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  Speaker 1: The government has tried to keep Hoda and Abby out
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  Speaker 1: of Australia. They issued a temporary exclusion order. What is
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  Speaker 1: the situation now with her possibility of return and whether
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  Speaker 1: the government can stop her coming back to Australia?
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  Speaker 4: It's really interesting, actually. All Hoda and Abby had to
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  Speaker 4: do was apply for a return permit, which she has
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  Speaker 4: subsequently done, I believe, through her lawyers. And the government
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  Speaker 4: was powerless to prevent that. But my understanding is she
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  Speaker 4: has oscillated wildly on whether she wants to return or not.
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  Speaker 4: And what I've been told is that in the past
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  Speaker 4: four to six weeks, her little girl, who's now 10...
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  Speaker 4: has undergone surgery in Syria, which is not ideal, right?
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  Speaker 4: The whole argument for being allowed to return to Australia
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  Speaker 4: was so that her daughter, who is disabled by this
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  Speaker 4: shrapnel that's in her, I believe, hip, back, head and
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  Speaker 4: other parts of her body, that she'd be allowed to
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  Speaker 4: come back to Australia so she can have the surgery
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  Speaker 4: she needs. But, I mean, it's entirely possible that she
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  Speaker 4: wasn't able to fly with that shrapnel inside her body,
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  Speaker 4: which I understand has been moving as she grows, that
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  Speaker 4: could be a pretty dangerous scenario that perhaps commercial airlines
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  Speaker 4: would not want to take on. That's purely speculation, but yeah.
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  Speaker 1: One of the factors that she presumably would be considering
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  Speaker 1: is that it's possible that she would be charged with
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  Speaker 1: committing a crime against humanity involving the slavery of Aisha
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  Speaker 1: or perhaps other people. There are already two Australian women
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  Speaker 1: who were in the cohort of so-called ISIS brides who've
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  Speaker 1: already returned who are facing similar charges. But I'd imagine
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  Speaker 1: these things would be hard to prove. I mean, you
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  Speaker 1: and I have sat through lots of different kinds of
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  Speaker 1: court cases and even in a standard sexual assault trial
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  Speaker 1: or a child abuse trial, everybody gets a defence lawyer
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  Speaker 1: and the defence lawyer is asking questions like, well, how
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  Speaker 1: do you know that this happened on the 1st of
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  Speaker 1: December and not on the 3rd of March? You know,
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  Speaker 1: what evidence do you have? Do you have photos? Did
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  Speaker 1: you tell anybody at the time? I mean, These questions
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  Speaker 1: for someone like Aisha would be very difficult for her
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  Speaker 1: to prove anything, wouldn't it?
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  Speaker 4: Incredibly difficult. I mean, as we've just discussed, she was
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  Speaker 4: nine at the time and that household was one of
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  Speaker 4: nine or ten that she was sold into. She remembers
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  Speaker 4: it well because it was the first time she was
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  Speaker 4: raped and, you know, there's no doubt that that would
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  Speaker 4: stay in your mind. There are also existing accusations against
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  Speaker 4: Houghton Abbey that may have already influenced the government's decision
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  Speaker 4: to issue that temporary exclusion order. I believe they relate
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  Speaker 4: to her behaviour inside the Al-Roj camp. She was accused
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  Speaker 4: by others of acting as a sharia enforcer and accused
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  Speaker 4: of violence in certain circumstances. Now, that's an accusation that
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  Speaker 4: is yet to be proven. I understand also that Hoden
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  Speaker 4: Abbey was not placed with the other Australians in the camp.
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  Speaker 4: She was misidentified as Somalian. And so she ended up
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  Speaker 4: being placed with a very, very hardline extremist group of women.
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  Speaker 4: And it's been put to me that Whatever she did
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  Speaker 4: in the camp, she might have done because, you know,
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  Speaker 4: it was a case of having to survive within that cohort.
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  Speaker 4: This young woman, Aisha, has reached out through an intermediary
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  Speaker 4: to the Australian Federal Police. It will come down to,
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  Speaker 4: you know, having to go through the mutual assistance agreements
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  Speaker 4: that exist between Australia and the European country, which she
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  Speaker 4: now calls home.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, Australians don't want to bring these women home,
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  Speaker 1: but is it the right thing to do? It adds
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  Speaker 1: such an interesting ethical twist to the way we think
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  Speaker 1: about these women, doesn't it? You know, on one hand...
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  Speaker 1: the countries where they are, want them out. They don't
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  Speaker 1: want to be looking after these Australians who've come into
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  Speaker 1: their jurisdiction and committed crimes anymore. Australians don't want them
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  Speaker 1: to come home. It's wildly unpopular here in Australia. However,
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  Speaker 1: their children often haven't done anything wrong. And so they
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  Speaker 1: are Australians too. But now we have a situation where
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  Speaker 1: an alleged victim of one of these women is saying,
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  Speaker 1: I want Australia to punish her. And maybe the best
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  Speaker 1: chance of if she has committed any crimes of her
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  Speaker 1: actually being punished is here in Australia. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, she's pretty convinced that that's the only way
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  Speaker 4: that Hoda Nabi, if it is in fact Hoda Nabi,
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  Speaker 4: will ever face justice because it won't happen in Syria.
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  Speaker 4: It seems highly likely she will face arrest on her return.
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  Speaker 4: And I think that's definitely a consideration, a major consideration
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  Speaker 4: for her as to whether she returns because by all accounts,
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  Speaker 4: she is absolutely determined not to be separated from her
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  Speaker 4: child who's quite disabled. even if she does get to court,
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  Speaker 4: the fact that even this young woman says that she
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  Speaker 4: was unhappy inside the caliphate, that she tried to prevent
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  Speaker 4: her husband from sexually abusing this little girl. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: maybe that won't be a high enough bar to convict
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  Speaker 4: her of crimes against humanity. And that's still to be
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  Speaker 4: tested because we're currently going through the first ever two
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  Speaker 4: cases of that in Australia now with Kausar and Zainab Abbas.
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  Speaker 1: Amanda Hodge, thank you very much. Thanks, Claire. Amanda Hodge
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  Speaker 1: is The Australian's Asia-Pacific correspondent.