By Vivek Thiagarajan
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Middle East
DAMASCUS, Syria- Survival Sex is the term coined by the UNCHR to describe refugees forced to enter the sex industry to support their families. Although the idea is repulsive to most refugees many teenage women are forced to enter this type of work to help their family survive, because they are unable to find conventional jobs.
The increase in women forced into Survival Sex is directly linked to the general impoverishment of the refugee population according to UNHCR representative Laurens Jolles. “We are more and more confronted with examples of young girls or women who have decided on their own or through their families to get involved in night clubs to supplement the family income or just to look after their children,” Jolles continued. (Yahoo News) The girls usually make $30 a night and $100 a night whenever they enter the private villas to render private services. (BBC News)
Some girls are abducted and forced into the sex trade. However, there are some situations where the Iraqi refugee women willingly join the sex industry. First, some teenage girls have been abandoned by their families and do not have a way to support themselves. Sometimes this happens because a girl lost her virginity or has been divorced, even if it was not her choice to engage in sex. Also, many girls are forced into the sex industry when they are choosing to support their mothers and family, because their fathers were killed in the war. Sometimes the girls can remain at home while engaging in the sex industry. However, it is also common for the girls to married off into temporary marriages or sold directly to exploiters who promise to support the family through the services rendered by the girl.
It is difficult for the Syrian government to be able to address the situation because the shame of the women in the sex industry usually stops them from reporting their situation to the authorities. Also, the women who are discovered to be engaged in the industry are only arrested by the authorities and bailed out by those who are engaged in exploiting the girls.
The dire situation has caused many Iraqi refugees to lose hope and remain in the sex industry. For example, a girl who was kidnapped raped and forced into prostitution because her father abandoned after her cousin took away her virginity complained about her situation. “Now they will send me back to Iraq, I have no-one there and in any case I am afraid for my life. I have no hope leaving here. I have told the government I don’t want to go back. My family has abandoned me.” (BBC News)
For more information, please see:
BBC News- Prostitution ordeal of Iraqi girls- 3 December 2007
Yahoo News (Reuters)- Iraqi refugees turn to sex trade in Syria- 30 December 2007
