The trial of a Dutch woman charged with keeping two Yazidi women as slaves in Syria started on Monday at The Hague’s district court, in the first case of its kind in the Netherlands.

Hasna A is charged with crimes against humanity, membership of a terrorist organisation and endangering the life of a child. She was part of a group of 12 Dutch women and their children who were repatriated to the Netherlands from a Syrian refugee camp in 2022.

The 32-year-old left the Netherlands in 2015 with her four year old son. In Syria, which was then controlled by ISIS or the Islamic State, she married a Moroccan fighter.

In 2014, as the Islamic State was gaining territorial control in Iraq and Syria, they accused the Yazidis of being devil worshippers and murdered thousands. They took thousands more as captives, using women as sex and domestic slaves.

According to the prosecution, Hasna A and her husband kept two Yazidi women as domestic servants to cook and clean. Hasna A also allegedly forced them to pray. The Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking people, practice Yazidism, a pre-Zoroastrian Iranian religion.

Hasna A denies wrong doing, saying the women were hired by her husband as domestic workers. A similar case in Germany resulted in a conviction and a nine year jail sentence for the woman charged.

On Wednesday, the two victims will give statements about their treatment.