IRAQ: Focus on boys trapped in commercial sex trade

[leftchick]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/1773612840a888f873dbf8a38888816c.htm


BAGHDAD, 8 August (IRIN) - 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.

<snip>

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.

[fooj]

1. WTF? This is an outrage.

Peace.

[Mabus]

2. No doubt, part of the Noble Cause

One of the benefits of the freedom we want them to have, the open market, higher employment, etc. Religious and sexual intolerance. It is beginning to sound like the America we're living in.

Is this part of that noble cause?

:sarcasm: :cry:

[wli]

3. child sex slavery: more Republican family values

[davidinalameda]

4. another thread was started in the GLBT forum

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x14712

[KurtNYC]

5. Someting isn't right with this story

The reported talks about how these kids don't want their family to know what they are doing for fear of death but they published all of their names!

Also, if the whole matter is so taboo, how do they find customers? And since the customers have money and the kids don't - why not just extort money from the customers?

Back in 1993, Time magazine did a cover story on male prostitutes in Russia, complete with interviews and pictures. They showed boys dressing as girls in order to work the streets of Moscow and it was all very sensationalistic. It turned out that the Time reporter (or rather the person who sold the story to them) had faked the whole thing! So in effect Time magazine had paid for boys to be dressed as girls and photographed and then printed lies about them. See: http://archives.cjr.org/year/93/6/followup.asp

I'm not saying everything is fine in Bagdad but I am cynical of the details in this story.

[Felix Mala]

6. It's okay. The Culture of Life will protect him.

[Az_lefty]

7. Sheesh, I thought this was about Abu Ghraib...

:sarcasm: