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Child Slavery in Iraq

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Mon Aug 08, 2005 at 08:03:29 PM EST
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Via Suburban Guerilla who asks, Better Off?

Reuters:

Hassan Feiraz, a 16-year-old boy, has started a desperate new life since being forced into the sex trade in Baghdad, joining a growing number of adolescents soliciting in Iraq under the threat of street gangs or the force of poverty.

"Every day I cry at night," Feiraz said. "I'm a homosexual and was forced to work as a prostitute because one of the people I had sex with took pictures of me in bed and said that, if I didn't work for him, he was going to send the pictures to my family."

"My life is a disaster today. I could be killed by my family to restore their honour," he said, explaining that homosexuality was totally unacceptable in Iraq due to religious beliefs.

Following the conflict in 2003, there has been an increase in the number of commercial sex workers (CSWs) in the country, especially among teenagers, according to local officials.

This increase is attributed to economic pressure faced by families countrywide and the presence of new prostitution rings that have sprung up since the invasion. With society in turmoil and a raft of other serious issues to address, child protection has not been uppermost in the priorities of the transitional government.

There's lots more in the article.

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    Child Slavery in Iraq | 13 comments (13 topical)
    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#1)
    by John Mann on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:05 PM EST
    Hey, democracy is messy.

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#2)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:05 PM EST
    No wonder the photos and videos at Abu Ghraib. A blackmail torture Psy ops approach most likely got them to confess to anything. Geniuses.

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#3)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:05 PM EST
    Sounds like a Fred Phelps dream come true. Praise god!

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#4)
    by ras on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:05 PM EST
    Puh-leez, You've found (if really true, and not just RaTHergate true), a single individual whose misfortune, by your own admission, has to do with his culture - well, plus a little personal blackmail - and no specific govt policy.And you hold this up as an example of how life was better under Saddam? Well, Saddam was a Baath Socialist, I guess. But is that still enough, I wonder?

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#5)
    by John Mann on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:06 PM EST
    I'd bet anything I have that if you asked Joe or Jane Iraqi if they're better off now than they were in 1990, most of them would say "No". The hypocrisy of those who support the 15-year ongoing war against the people of Iraq, while conveniently forgetting that Saddam Hussein was committing his crimes with direct abbetance from the United States, is almost unbelievable. In what proved to be a trap, Saddam was told by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq that the United States would not interfere with his designs on Kuwait, so he attacked. The trap was then sprung, and America had its excuse to attack Iraq, and did so even as Iraqi forces were fleeing Kuwait after Bush the Dumb's ultimatum to do so. Countless Iraqis have perished because of two wars and American-led sanctions. American aggression against Iraq was all about oil (money) then, and it's all about oil (money) now.

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#6)
    by desertswine on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:06 PM EST
    American aggression against Iraq was all about oil (money) then, and it's all about oil (money) now.
    No doubt about it; war for profit.

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#7)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:06 PM EST
    I can't blame the US invasion here, this barbaric incident stems from the religous hang ups of the allah-freaks and basic human cruelty. There are sex slaves all over the world, US included. The only way I see the invasion playing a part is in the general lawlessness it created. Sad.

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#8)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:07 PM EST
    Agree with K-Dog, although our support for thugs like Saddaam did not allow the fundamentalist impusles in these nations to naturally evolve and be dealt with -- to the contrary, our support made fundamentalism even more blindly fervent and widely supported. BTW, we also "freed" Afghanistan, where Kandahar is once again the boy-f*uckers capital of the region. Read a disturbing article about this a few years ago, can't remember where it was. Harpers, I wanna say.

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#9)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:07 PM EST
    oops, sorry about that assterisk error. my f*ckin' bad.

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#10)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:07 PM EST
    I spent a month in Romania in early 1990 only a few weeks after Ceausescu was dethroned. One of the things the locals we were hanging out with in Bucharest were suprised to see were all the street-walkers and glue-sniffers out in public after 25 years or so of being driven "underground" by the Ceausescu regime. I saw a recent "expose" on TV where the undercover reporters bought sex slaves in Romania. Despite these types of negative aspects of "freedom" and except for the priviledged few who profited enormously from Ceausescu's regime, I seriously doubt there are many who pine for the "old days."

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#11)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:07 PM EST
    I agree sarc...freedom sure does have it's ills...but it beats the alternative.

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#12)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:07 PM EST
    John M: I remember that. Kuwait was slant-drilling, stealing Iraq's oil. Interesting that I read the other day that the current Iraq govt is complaining that Kuwait is doing it again. Will they be allowed to invade this time since "we" now control the Iraq oil? Or will Kuwait be allowed to continue, making it easier to get the oil from Iraq indirectly (plus rewarding them for their cooperation with us)?

    Re: Child Slavery in Iraq (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:07 PM EST
    ras wrote:
    a single individual whose misfortune, by your own admission, has to do with his culture - well, plus a little personal blackmail - and no specific govt policy.And you hold this up as an example of how life was better under Saddam?
    Actually, no, life was not better under Saddam because fundamental Islam, which is the real problem here, still existed even then. I wasn't thinking along the lines of "better under Saddam" when I read this, I was thinking just how much life in the radical Islamic world mirrors life in the radical Christian world, who's members would be out in the streets, decency police style, if they could be, thankfully, the seperation of church and state prevents such odious things from taking place here.

    Child Slavery in Iraq | 13 comments (13 topical)