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Women and girls from Iraq's Yazidi minority endured horrors at the hands of ISIS extremists after they were taken as slaves last summer, leaving them deeply traumatized, an international watchdog group said in a report issued on Tuesday.

The Amnesty International reportis based on interviews with over 40 former captives who were among hundreds of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority captured by ISIS fighters in early August when the militants overran their hometown of Sinjar.

Hundreds were killed in the attack, and tens of thousands were either stranded in nearby Mount Sinjar or fled mostly to the Kurdish-held parts of northern Iraq.

The London-based group said the captives, including girls aged 10-12, faced torture, rape, forced marriage and were "sold" or given as "gifts" to ISIS fighters or their supporters in militant-held areas in Iraq and Syria. Often, captives were forced to convert to Islam.

"Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls have had their lives shattered by the horrors of sexual violence and sexual slavery in [ISIS]captivity," Amnesty's senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera said in a statement.

"Many of those held as sexual slaves are children girls aged 14, 15 or even younger," Rovera added.

Fearful of rape, some captives took their own lives like the 19-year old Jilan, according to her brother and one of the 20 girls who were with her.

"One day we were given clothes that looked like dance costumes and were told to bathe and wear those clothes," said the girl quoted in the report. "Jilan killed herself in the bathroom. She cut her wrists and hanged herself. She was very beautiful; I think she knew she was going to be taken away by a man and that is why she killed herself," added the girl, who was among those who later escaped.

It was unclear how many Yazidi women were abducted, but Iraq's Human Rights Ministry put the number in the "hundreds." Amnesty reports said the number is "possibly thousands."

In an interview with CBC'sAs It Happens, Rovera said "the systematic nature" of the attacks amount to ethnic cleansing.

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ISIS in Iraq: Captive Yazidi women and girls faced brutal ...