Dislocation,rape and enslavement:this was the fate of thousands of women. IS massacred members of the Yazidi minority in 2014 as it took over the Sinjar region. They sold the women as sex slaves for IS fighters then sold and resold them many times in the following years. It’s believed many remain in the IS-held western half of Mosul.

Repression of all kinds was routine. Conservative Islam might require modesty but IS demanded invisibility. Under strictly enforced clothing rules,it was virtually impossible for women to visit the public square – certainly not without a male relative.

“Everyone was looking at you,all the time. Everyone was watching your movements,” says mother of five Ayat*,at the Jada’ah camp near Qayyarah.

“We were too afraid to do anything ... so we stopped going out at all.”

Not wearing gloves,nor flat shoes,nor the double veil;even allowing a glimpse of flesh by lifting the veil a crack to check money at the market or to sip a drink – any of these breaches could lead to punishment. Some women were fined 50,000 ($50) or 100,000 dinars,others were whipped or hit with a wooden baton.

Ayat’s daughter Farah* was 12 when two IS militants with rocket launchers fired at a helicopter then ran into the family’s home,using those inside as a human shield. The helicopters fired anyway,destroying the house. The IS fighters escaped but every member of the family was wounded. Farah's little sister,10,bled to death from shrapnel injuries.

Farah had a piece of shrapnel embedded in her face. The family walked 16 kilometres to the nearest hospital,where doctors bandaged them up.

“But as Farah left the surgery ... some IS guys nearby shouted at her and scolded her because she was not wearing the veil over her eyes,” says father,Farouq*. “They said she was revealing her face.”

Punishments against women were usually administered by female IS fighters who were part of the infamous hisba moral police. These fearsome women were reputedly often Russian,possibly Chechen.

The most freakish of their punishments is said to have been an instrument known as “the biter”. Some describe a set of medieval pliers;others say it’s sharpened,iron teeth that fit over the punisher’s real teeth to allow it to penetrate flesh. Still others say it was electrified. All,though,claim that the biter caused wounds that often caused death. Everyone had heard the story but nobody we met had witnessed the punishment or knew anyone directly who’d suffered it.

But for married women,at least,it was usual for punishments to be inflicted on the husband.

He was required to hand over his ID card and then,when he went to pick it up,he was fined or whipped.

Some managed to avoid it. Yusuf Abbas was forced to hand in his card when his daughter was caught not fully covered as she hung clothes on their roof. Yusuf simply never went to claim it back,preferring to go without ID than be whipped.

At Khazer camp,a temporary home to 38,000 displaced people,it’s cold and many complain about small meals and a lack of medical care.