Friday, December 04, 2009

Iraqi women forced into sex slavery

Leah Forchheimer
12-4-09
4:56

The article that I read this week was about Iraqi women being forced into being sex slaves. One of the reasons in the article that was talked about was why these women were being forced into sex slavery. One of the reasons was the economy dwindling down and people are losing their jobs and have to find a way to make money. Some criminal gangs exploit girls as young as the age of twelve in order to make a profit. Many of the women are being trafficked to places like Syria or the Gulf states, but some women are being trafficked internally inside Iraq, from one city to the next. The Baghdad Women's Organization estimates that at least 200 Iraqi women are sold into slavery every year, although the US-based Human Rights Watch estimates that the numbers are in the thousands. Yet, the organizations say that the numbers of trafficked women being forced into sex slavery would be higher if Iraqi refugee women in bordering countries, like Syria and Lebanon, were included. The situation has become increasingly worse since 2003, which may have to do with the seventy percent of Iraqis that have lost their jobs since 2003.

I think it is sad that people think that they have to turn to human trafficking and force women into sex slavery. There is a direct link between people losing their jobs and the increase of human trafficking. People are losing their jobs left and right because of the economy and because of this people need a way to make a living. People see forcing women into sex slavery as a way to support themselves in the waning economy. I think that two things need to happen in order for there to be a less amount of human trafficking happening. The first thing that needs to happen is for jobs to be more available to people and also, the government needs to spend more time tracking down human traffickers.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1259243063998&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

1 comment:

Sarah Creech said...

I agree. Sex trafficking is an awful thing. I also think there should be more time spent looking for the people who commit this horrible offense.