Journalist Anna Erelle's fake romance with ISIS fighter lures proposal

If you stay in your Western country, you will burn in Hell because you are not a good person, you are not a good Muslim, you have to come and help your brother here.- Anna Erelle (pseudonym) describing what an ISIS fighter said to woo her

It's a burning question today, in Europe and all of the West -- Why do so many young women feel the pull of the militant group ISIS, and leave their lives here behind to live in the so-called Islamic State? 

When a French journalist set out to find some answers, she started by creating a fake Facebook profile -- calling herself Mélodie --to safely observe the group's online recruitment.

And then, Mélodie's profile caught the eye of a high-ranking ISIS leader. Soon, Abu Bilel Al-Firanzi was imploring her to move to Syria, and be his bride. This all happened about a year ago, and the journalist has now written a book about her experience, called "In the Skin of  A Jihadist." She writes under the pseudonym Anna Erelle to protect her identity. Anna Erelle was in Paris.

For women such as Anna Erelle in the West, ISIS recruitment takes the form of online coercion. But it's a very different story for women and girls living under or near ISIS control.

The U.N. estimates that some three thousand women have been captured and enslaved by the group as it expands its territory. These are Muslim, Christian, and especially Yazidi women. And as we're about to hear more about the horrors they're facing, be aware that we'll be discussing some disturbing descriptions of these women's treatment. 

Zainab Bangura is the United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict.  She is back from a tour of refugee camps that border ISIS territory, and joined us from New York City.
 

This segment was produced by The Current's Marc Apollonio.