Desperate Iraqis Turn to Sex Trade

Desperate Iraqi Refugees turn to sex trade in Syria. NYTIMES, 29 May.

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Back home in Iraq, Umm Hiba’s daughter was a devout schoolgirl, modest in her dress and serious about her studies. Hiba, who is now 16, wore the hijab, or Islamic head scarf, and rose early each day to say the dawn prayer before classes.

But that was before militias began threatening their Baghdad neighborhood and Umm Hiba and her daughter fled to Syria last spring. There were no jobs, and Umm Hiba’s elderly father developed complications related to his diabetes.

Desperate, Umm Hiba followed the advice of an Iraqi acquaintance and took her daughter to work at a nightclub along a highway known for prostitution. “We Iraqis used to be a proud people,” she said over the frantic blare of the club’s speakers ...

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Bashar should be ashamed of himself for allowing the skin trade to grow and fester and flourish on Syrian soil like that.

Saddam used to import prostitutes from various countries to serve in brothels throughout Iraq. However, numbers of Iraqi girls who ended up in the trade began to increase during the period of inter-war sanctions. All the prostitutes available to the inspectors during the UNSCOM days were Iraqi. Today, it has become a serious problem and is perhaps the most neglected of the panoply of neglected serious issues in the country.

Al-Jazeera, 13 Aug 07: Sex for Survival

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....According to the non-governmental organisation Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), 15 per cent of Iraqi women widowed by the war have been desperately searching for temporary marriages or prostitution, either for financial support or protection in the midst of sectarian war.

Nuha Salim, the spokesperson for OWFI, told Al Jazeera: "Widows are one of our priorities but their situation is worsening and we are feeling ineffective to cope with this significant problem. Hundreds of women are searching for an easy way to support their loved ones as employers refuse to hire them for fear of extremists' reprisals."

She said the NGO has documented the disappearance of some 4000 women, 20 per cent of whom are under 18, since the March 2003 invasion. OWFI believes most of the missing women were kidnapped and sold into prostitution outside Iraq.....

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Besides the obvious humanitarian and long-term societal implications, think immediate IO impact. This is currently "the most e-mailed" story on Al-Jazeera.

I don't say this in a smartassed tone...

The only way this IO impact would be worse is if Americans are implicated in the solicitation of services. I agree this is a bad IO problem, particularly the way Al Jazeera is promoting and proliferating the story. It's going to get worse if it becomes a story about Green Zone officials patronizing the business.

This makes me very sad indeed. The US government should have come up with a better plan to oust Saddam rather than placing sanctions and then an unplanned invasion.

Well, the horse has been out of the gate for some time now. Saddam and his boys are worm food, killed and buried these many months now and it is starting to look like most Iraqis don't want AQ operating in their midst. Once the central government is allowed to have a bit more power than the tribes and Sheiks, the children in Iraq will know a future much better than what their parents had.