UCLA professor to address Islamic State’s abuse of women in lecture

A UCLA professor will be speaking Thursday about women who are being trafficked and enslaved by the Islamic State group.

Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, will speak at the event, which is called “ISIS and the Enslavement and Trafficking of Women.”

The Islamic State group is an Islamic extremist group that has been gaining increasing control over territory in the Middle East. There have been reports of the group forcingwomen into slavery and prostitution.

Merima Tricic, a third-year world arts and cultures, religious studies and political science student, said she coordinated the event to open up a conversation about the Islamic State group and how it relates to Islam.

She said she reached out to multiple campus organizations and to Abou El Fadl after coming up with the idea for the event.

“This event addresses misconceptions about Islam and ISIS,” Tricic said. “People often think that Muslims are responsible for ISIS or that ISIS is a representation of Islam.”

Tricic said she reached out to Abou El Fadl because he is an expert in Islamic law.

Abou El Fadl will be talking about how the Islamic State group’s practices of trafficking and enslaving women conflict with the teachings of Islam, Tricic said.

“I organized this event because there was a lot of Islamophobia on campus and I wanted to use this to address campus climate,” Tricic said. “Women who wear the scarf are sometimes told that they look like a terrorist or to go back to their country.”

Tricic said she hopes the event educates students about what she thinks are the broad and harmful effects of the Islamic State group’s actions on all women.

The event will be in Room 1347 of the law school at 6 p.m.

Compiled by Kat Bocanegra Speed, Bruin contributor.