[WCUSP] Fwd: [womeninblack] Desperate Iraqi Refugees Turn to Sex Trade in Syria

[yvonne simmons]

Also it is happening within Iraq and with US of A
soldiers, Yvonne.
> From: Elahe Amani 
> 
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05
> /29/world/middleeast/29syria .html?ref=world
> Dear friends--
> The economic reality of life for Iraqi refugees is
> so harsh that the safety and security of young women
> and girl have been compromised in the hands of the
> traffickers.  The rise of religious extremism in
> Iraq in addition to occupation of their land have
> elevated violence against women and girls in
> different layers of home, community and society and
> strengthen the patriarchal culture and value system.
> 
> 
> As it has been documented, war and armed conflict
> will compromise and marginalize the status of women
> and girls.
> 
> Peace and human dignity,
> Elahe
> 
> 
> Desperate Iraqi Refugees Turn to Sex Trade in Syria 
> 
> Ben Stechshulte for The New York Times
> 
> At Al Rawabi, an expensive nightclub in Al Hami,
> customers can drink imported Scotch, smoke water
> pipes and watch a show featuring young Iraqi woman
> gyrating to a 10-piece band on a garishly lighted  
> 
> By KATHERINE ZOEPF
> Published: May 29, 2007
> MARABA, Syria — 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. She
> pointed out her daughter, dancing among about two
> dozen other girls on the stage, wearing a pink silk
> dress with spaghetti straps, her frail shoulders
> bathed in colored light. 
> 
> As Umm Hiba watched, a middle-aged man climbed onto
> the platform and began to dance jerkily, arms
> flailing, among the girls.
> 
> “During the war we lost everything,” she said. “We
> even lost our honor.” She insisted on being
> identified by only part of her name — Umm Hiba means
> mother of Hiba.
> 
> For anyone living in Damascus these days, the fact
> that some Iraqi refugees are selling sex or working
> in sex clubs is difficult to ignore. 
> 
> Even in central Damascus, men freely talk of being
> approached by pimps trawling for customers outside
> juice shops and shawarma sandwich stalls, and of
> women walking up to passing men, an act unthinkable
> in Arab culture, and asking in Iraqi-accented Arabic
> if the men would like to “have a cup of tea.”
> 
> By day the road that leads from Damascus to the
> historic convent at Saidnaya is often choked with
> Christian and Muslim pilgrims hoping for one of the
> miracles attributed to a portrait of the Virgin Mary
> at the convent. But as any Damascene taxi driver can
> tell you, the Maraba section of this fabled pilgrim
> road is fast becoming better known for its brisk
> trade in Iraqi prostitutes. 
> 
> Many of these women and girls, including some barely
> in their teens, are recent refugees. Some are
> tricked or forced into prostitution, but most say
> they have no other means of supporting their
> families. As a group they represent one of the most
> visible symptoms of an Iraqi refugee crisis that has
> exploded in Syria in recent months. 
> 
> According to the United Nations high commissioner
> for refugees, about 1.2 million Iraqi refugees now
> live in Syria; the Syrian government puts the figure
> even higher. 
> 
> Given the deteriorating economic situation of those
> refugees, a United Nations report found last year,
> many girls and women in “severe need” turn to
> prostitution, in secret or even with the knowledge
> or involvement of family members. In many cases, the
> report added, “the head of the family brings clients
> to the house.” 
> 
> Aid workers say thousands of Iraqi women work as
> prostitutes in Syria, and point out that as violence
> in Iraq has increased, the refugee population has
> come to include more female-headed households and
> unaccompanied women. 
> 
> “So many of the Iraqi women arriving now are living
> on their own with their children because the men in
> their families were killed or kidnapped,” said
> Sister Marie-Claude Naddaf, a Syrian nun at the Good
> Shepherd convent in Damascus, which helps Iraqi
> refugees. 
> 
> She said the convent had surveyed Iraqi refugees
> living in Masaken Barzeh, on the outskirts of
> Damascus, and found 119 female-headed households in
> one small neighborhood. Some of the women, seeking
> work outside the home for the first time and living
> in a country with high unemployment, find that their
> only marketable asset is their bodies. 
> 
> “I met three sisters-in-law recently who were living
> together and all prostituting themselves,” Sister
> Marie-Claude said. “They would go out on alternate
> nights — each woman took her turn — and then divide
> the money to feed all the children.” 
> 
> For more than three years after the American-led
> invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi prostitution in
> Syria, like any prostitution, was a forbidden topic
> for Syria’s government. Like drug abuse, the sex
> trade tends to be referred to in the local news
> media as acts against public decency. But Dietrun
> Günther, an official at the United Nations refugee
> agency’s Damascus office, said the government was
> finally breaking its silence.
> 
> “We’re especially concerned that there are young
> girls involved, and that they’re being forced, even
> smuggled into Syria in some cases,” Ms. Günther
> said. “We’ve had special talks with the Syrian
> government about prostitution.” She called the
> officials’ new openness “a great step.”
> 
> Mouna Asaad, a Syrian women’s rights lawyer, said
> the government had been blindsided by the scale of
> the arriving Iraqi refugee population. Syria does
> not require visas for citizens of Arab countries,
> and its government had pledged to assist needy
> Iraqis. But this country of 19 million was ill
> equipped to cope with the sudden arrival of hundreds
> of thousands of them, Ms. Asaad said. 
> 
> “Sometimes you see whole families living this way,
> the girls pimped by the mother or aunt,” she said.
> “But prostitution isn’t the only problem. Our
> schools are overcrowded, and the prices of services,
> food and transportation have all risen. We don’t
> have the proper infrastructure to deal with this. We
> don’t have shelters or health centers that these
> women can go to. And because of the situation in
> Iraq, Syria is careful not to deport these women.” 
> 
> Most of the semi-organized prostitution takes place
> on the outskirts of the capital, in nightclubs known
> as casinos — a local euphemism, because no gambling
> occurs. 
> 
> At Al Rawabi, an expensive nightclub in Al Hami,
> there is even a floor show with an Iraqi theme. One
> recent evening, waiters brought out trays of snacks:
> French fries and grilled chicken hearts wrapped in
> foil folded into diamond shapes. A 10-piece band
> warmed up, and an M.C. gave the traditionally
> overwrought introduction in Arabic: “I give you the
> honey of all stages, the stealer of all hearts, the
> most golden throat, the glamorous artist: Maria!”
> 
> Maria, a buxom young woman, climbed onto the stage
> and began an anguished-sounding ballad. “After Iraq
> I have no homeland,” she sang. “I’m ready to go
> crawling on my knees back to Iraq.” Four other
> women, all wearing variations on leopard print,
> gyrated on stage, swinging their hair in wild
> circles. The stage lights had been fitted with
> colored gel filters that lent the women’s skin a
> greenish cast. 
> 
> Al Rawabi’s customers watched Maria calmly, leaning
> back in their chairs and drinking Johnnie Walker
> Black. The large room smelled strongly of sweat
> mingled with the apple tobacco from scores of water
> pipes. When Maria finished singing, no one clapped.
> 
> She picked up the microphone again and began what
> she called a salute to Iraq, naming many of the
> Iraqi women in the club and, indicating one of the
> women in leopard print who had danced with her,
> “most especially my best friend, Sahar.”
> 
> After the dancers filed offstage and scattered
> around the room to talk to customers, Sahar told a
> visitor she was from the Dora district of Baghdad
> but had left “because of the troubles.” Now, she
> said she would leave the club with him for $200. 
> 
> Aid workers say $50 to $70 is considered a good
> night’s wage for an Iraqi prostitute working in
> Damascus. And some of the Iraqi dancers in the
> crowded casinos of Damascus suburbs earn much less. 
> 
> In Maraba, Umm Hiba would not say how much money her
> daughter took home at the end of a night. Noticing
> her reluctance, the club’s manager, who introduced
> himself as Hassan, broke in proudly. 
> 
> “We make sure that each girl has a minimum of 500
> lira at the end of each night, no matter how bad
> business is,” he said, mentioning a sum of about
> $10. “We are sympathetic to the situation of the
> Iraqi people. And we try to give some extra help to
> the girls whose families are in special
> difficulties.” 
> 
> Umm Hiba shook her head. “It’s true that the
> managers here are good, that they’re helping us and
> not stealing the girls’ money,” she said. “But I’m
> so angry.
> 
> “Do you think we’re happy that these men from the
> gulf are seeing our daughters’ naked bodies?” 
> 
> Most so-called casinos do not appear to directly
> broker arrangements between prostitutes and their
> customers. Zafer, a waiter at the club where Hiba
> works, said that the club earned money through sales
> of food and alcohol and that the dancers were
> encouraged to sit with male customers and order
> drinks to increase revenues. 
> 
> Zafer, who spoke on condition that only his first
> name be used, refused to discuss specific women and
> girls at the club, but said that most of them did
> sell sexual favors. “They have an hourly rate,” he
> said. “And they have regular customers.”
> 
> Inexpensive Iraqi prostitutes have helped to make
> Syria a popular destination for sex tourists from
> wealthier countries in the Middle East. In the
> club’s parking lot, nearly half of the cars had
> Saudi license plates. 
> 
> >From Damascus it is only about six hours by car,
> passing through Jordan, to the Saudi border. Syria,
> where it is relatively easy to buy alcohol and dance
> with women, is popular as a low-cost weekend
> destination for groups of Saudi men.
> 
> And though some women of other nationalities,
> including Russians and Moroccans, still work as
> prostitutes in Damascus, Abeer, a 23-year-old from
> Baghdad working at the same club as Hiba, explained
> that the arriving Iraqis had pushed many of them out
> of business. 
> 
> “From what I’ve seen, 70 percent to 80 percent of
> the girls working this business in Damascus today
> are Iraqis,” she said. “The rents here in Syria are
> too expensive for their families. If they go back to
> Iraq they’ll be slaughtered, and this is the only
> work available.”
> > _______________________________________________
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