Iraqi women: Prostituting ourselves to feed our children

[almaty 19]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The women are too afraid and ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used. They have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children -- for as little as $8 a day.

Both women nervously clenched their hands as they spoke of turning to prostitution to help their families.

3 of 3 "People shouldn't criticize women, or talk badly about them," says 37-year-old Suha as she adjusts the light colored scarf she wears these days to avoid extremists who insist women cover themselves. "They all say we have lost our way, but they never ask why we had to take this path."

A mother of three, she wears light makeup, a gold pendant of Iraq around her neck, and an unexpected air of elegance about her.

"I don't have money to take my kid to the doctor. I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child, because I am a mother," she says, explaining why she prostitutes herself.

Anger and frustration rise in her voice as she speaks.

"No matter what else I may be, no matter how off the path I may be, I am a mother!" Watch a woman describe turning to prostitution to "save my child" »

Her clasped hands clench and unclench nervously. Her husband thinks that she is cleaning houses when she goes away.

So does Karima's family.

"At the start I was cleaning homes, but I wasn't making much. No matter how hard I worked it just wasn't enough," she says.

Karima, clad in all black, adds, "My husband died of lung cancer nine months ago and left me with nothing."

She has five children, ages 8 to 17. Her eldest son could work, but she's too afraid for his life to let him go into the streets, preferring to sacrifice herself than risk her child.

She was solicited the first time when she was cleaning an office.

"They took advantage of me," she says softly. "At first I rejected it, but then I realized I have to do it."

Both Suha and Karima have clients that call them a couple times a week. Other women resort to trips to the market to find potential clients. Or they flag down vehicles.

Prostitution is a choice more and more Iraqi women are making just to survive.

Violence, increased cost of living, and lack of any sort of government aid leave women like these with few other options, according to humanitarian workers.

"At this point there is a population of women who have to sell their bodies in order to keep their children alive," says Yanar Mohammed, head and founder of the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq. "It's a taboo that no one is speaking about."

She adds, "There is a huge population of women who were the victims of war who had to sell their bodies, their souls and they lost it all. It crushes us to see them, but we have to work on it and that's why we started our team of women activists."

Her team pounds the streets of Baghdad looking for these victims often too humiliated to come forward.

"Most of the women that we find at hospitals [who] have tried to commit suicide" have been involved in prostitution, said Basma Rahim, a member of Mohammed's team.

The team's aim is to compile information on specific cases and present it to Iraq's political parties -- to have them, as Mohammed puts it, "come tell us what [they] are ... going to do about this."

Rahim tells the heartbreaking story of one woman they found who lives in a room with three of her children: "She has sex while her three children are in the room, but she makes them stand in separate corners."

According to Rahim and Mohammed, most of the women they encounter say they are driven to prostitution by a desperate desire for survival in the dangerously violent and unforgiving circumstances in Iraq.

"They took this path but they are not pleased," Rahim says.

Karima says when she sees her children with food on the table, she is able to convince herself that it's worth it. "Everything is for the children. They are the beauty in life and, without them, we cannot live."

But she says, "I would never allow my daughter to do this. I would rather marry her off at 13 than have her go through this."

Karima's last happy memory is of her late husband, when they were a family and able to shoulder the hardships of life in today's Iraq together.

Suha says as a young girl she dreamed of being a doctor, with her mom boasting about her potential in that career. Life couldn't have taken her further from that dream.

"It's not like we were born into this, nor was it ever in my blood," she says.

What she does for her family to survive now eats away at her. "I lay on my pillow and my brain is spinning, and it all comes back to me as if I am watching a movie."

[*JG* 2]

Women do this all over the world. It is a very sad reality sometimes.

[bhajishah 4]

No money, no jobs, dead husbands and sons and no water or food. Well im sure its not the "emancipation" they expected. Inshallah it will get better once the dust clears. Its been a a long dust storm. ALLAH help them!!

[isleta521 5]

sad, Very sad

[almaty 19]

No money, no jobs, dead husbands and sons and no water or food. Well im sure its not the "emancipation" they expected. Inshallah it will get better once the dust clears. Its been a a long dust storm. ALLAH help them!!

[Caladan 19]

All those children are going to think "The Americans invaded, then there was a civil war, and my mom had to become a #######." Jesus wept.

[Jasman0717 9]

Poverty causes desperate people to do desperate things. I observed such horrible poverty while visiting the Philippines. My friend who lives there and the Expats group he has gotten involved in has started donating time and money to assist local efforts to help people living in dire conditions.

[almaty 19]

Poverty causes desperate people to do desperate things. I observed such horrible poverty while visiting the Philippines. My friend who lives there and the Expats group he has gotten involved in has started donating time and money to assist local efforts to help people living in dire conditions.

great!

[KaiserD 12]

In different circumstances it's easy to look down on people. If someone told you on the street "I know that woman, she's a prostitute" you would think "ugh..." or at least the immediate assumption that the person is suddenly worth less of a person than you are.

"I don't have money to take my kid to the doctor. I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child, because I am a mother," she says, explaining why she prostitutes herself.

This reminded me of what was brought quite clearly to my eyes the other day, that it is nearly all a matter of circumstance. People can distance themselves if they wish but it could just as easily be you or me in another time, in another place in less than fortunate circumstances and we would do whatever we could to keep on surviving or making ends meet.

It's sad that any human being has to turn to this and that there are people who would take advantage of that, all over the world.

Not only are these people not less than I am, they're probably better, because I don't know if I could have that kind of courage.

[Jasman0717 9]

Poverty causes desperate people to do desperate things. I observed such horrible poverty while visiting the Philippines. My friend who lives there and the Expats group he has gotten involved in has started donating time and money to assist local efforts to help people living in dire conditions.

great!

My friend just came in last night from the RP for a visit and we were up til the wee hours of the morning discussing this issue. One has to hope that some day we will become a united race of humans that will 'take care of our own'!

[mawilson 2,133]

All those children are going to think "The Americans invaded, then there was a civil war, and my mom had to become a #######." Jesus wept.

"Americans invaded,

There was a civil war.

My Father's an insurgent,

My Mother is a #######."

[almaty 19]

Poverty causes desperate people to do desperate things. I observed such horrible poverty while visiting the Philippines. My friend who lives there and the Expats group he has gotten involved in has started donating time and money to assist local efforts to help people living in dire conditions.

great!

My friend just came in last night from the RP for a visit and we were up til the wee hours of the morning discussing this issue. One has to hope that some day we will become a united race of humans that will 'take care of our own'!

Bless all of you for your kindness...dean

Poverty causes desperate people to do desperate things. I observed such horrible poverty while visiting the Philippines. My friend who lives there and the Expats group he has gotten involved in has started donating time and money to assist local efforts to help people living in dire conditions.

great!

My friend just came in last night from the RP for a visit and we were up til the wee hours of the morning discussing this issue. One has to hope that some day we will become a united race of humans that will 'take care of our own'!

Bless all of you for your kindness...dean

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I've wondered about the GI's over there, if they have been engaging with the locals for paid sex. Who are these women's clients?

[almaty 19]

i am saying NO....there has always been prostitution there as there is in most countries..GIs are cautious ...not to have alcohol or any insult towards women ...

banging one would be taboo...

[AnaAndDaniel 0]

always a sad situation.

Daniel

:energetic: