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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
May
31
The Effects of the War on Iraqi Women
Filed Under International, activism, human rights, sexual exploitation and harassment | Posted by Cara |
The NY Times ran an article the other day about how female Iraqi refugees are increasingly turning to sex work in Syria. As if women affected by war don’t already have enough to worry about (their husbands being killed and leaving them with no means of support, the threat of rape, the threat to their children . . .)
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.”
Of course, any fool could have seen this coming. It is a fact of war that many people are going to be left without income and will go to extreme lengths to stay alive, just like any of us would.
Some of these women and girls are being coerced to work in strip clubs or are sold into sexual slavery. Some are just trying to eat. But none of them are making a “choice.”
Earlier in the month, AlterNet also had up a report (which was also published in Ms. Magazine) about the effects of war on Iraqi women. Women are under far more scrutiny and gendered human rights violations– similar to what the Taliban did in Iraq– than they were under Saddam’s regime. The article sites many examples, but I personally have to look no farther than the public murder of an Iraqi woman, as Iraqi police officers watched, that took place earlier this month.
The article lists three of the very few organizations that are working to help women in Iraq, and I would like to link them here. There is the Global Fund For Women, MADRE and particularly Women For Women International, which will allow you to sponsor a woman affected by war for $27 a month. Please, check them out.
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
