“The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity“, said Mohandas Gandhi.

When we come to think of sex trade-we usually end up thinking it as a trade which women follow as a shortcut to wealth and other means. However, the women of Iraq have a different tale to tell. After the invasion of U.S., many of the women have lost their husbands in war and others live in a threat of loosing every second. They never know when they’ll become a widow. Their lives don’t have any sense of security, personally or economically. Also, after the invasion jobs for women have decreased and thus, forcing them to either do menial jobs. Where some of them are lucky enough to score on a good job, some take to menial jobs and the rest have to get into sex trade to earn a living either for themselves or their families.

One such tale is of Rana Jalil, a woman aged 38 who lost her husband last year in an explosion in Baghdad. A mother of four was on a breakdown when she got no job. Her children were diagnosed with malnutrition and she had no one to look up to. With a heavy heart she decided, what any mother would have in such a situation, to save her children. Recalling the day, she says,

In the beginning these were the worst days in my life. My husband was the first man I met and slept with, but I didn’t have another option ... my children were starving. I’m a nice-looking woman and it wasn’t difficult to find a client. When we got to the bed I tried to run away ... I just couldn’t do it, but he hit and raped me. When he paid me afterwards, it was finished for me. When I came home with some food I had bought from that money and saw my children screaming of happiness, I discovered that honour is insignificant compared to the hunger of my children.

The lady, once a respected woman, now lives a life of a prostitute. What else she could have done? Before the invasion, women who became widows due to the war were given allowances to carry on their lives but no such provisions exist now. They have a few options to go for, including prostitution or another marriage, how devastating it might be. As per OWFI, an NGO, the conditions have worsened and women are facing the trouble. Since 2003, around 4000 women have disappeared, among them 20% are under eighteen.

The cause of disappearance of women can be well asserted too. People are living under such misery that they are not left with any other option then to sell their daughters or force them into prostitution. For money, the families marry them for wealth into such families or to such men, to whom the word ‘marriage’ just means a way to possess women and use them, either themselves or within the market.

Shada, an alias of a woman living in Baghdad is trying her best to sought women from prostitution and convince them to lead better lives. If we come to think of it, we don’t have the answer to the question, ‘whom to blame?’ yet. Even I have only one question to ask, for whose fault are the people of Bhagdad suffering and till when, will the suffering continue? It seems that they are more sinned against the sin.

Source: Aljazeera