9 August 2005Direland.typepad.comDoug Ireland
A growing number of Iraqi boys are being forced to join the commercial sex trade --many forced to do so by criminal gangs through threats and violence, intimidation, and blackmail in a country where "honor killings" of youths who engage in same-sex relations by their families is encouraged by Sharia law and religious fanaticism; and some out of poverty in a country where official government figures for youth unemployment at 48 % (although the real figure is undoubtedly much higher). All this is confirmed by a new report from the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs' Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN).
And this goes on as the U.S. occupying force is silent and does nothing about it.
One boy whose story was told in the report was "Hassan Feiraz, a 16-year-old boy, [who] 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.
There has been a dramatic increase in the
number of youths engaged in the commercial sex trade since the fall of Saddam Hussein, according to this report, which attributes the Increase 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. The gangs use money or threats to get teenage boys to work for them, officials said.""Many of us are working under threat, but others are there because they don’t know how to survive and found it as an easy way of getting money,” Feiraz said. “Someone should help free us from these criminals.”
So-called "honor killings" of 
gay youth are endorsed by many Iraqi religious leaders. "Sheikh Hussein Salah, one of the heads of the Shi’ite Muslim community in Iraq, told IRIN in Baghdad that the families of those boys engaged in homosexual practices should 'kill them', whether the situation was forced on them or they entered into it freely.During Saddam Hussein's regime, Salah said, homosexuality was illegal and homosexual practices were punishable by death. 'We hope that this will be applied under the new constitution,' he added."Some Baghdadi families said they have stopped their children from going to school or university for fear that they would be lured into the unacceptable trade. 'If I found that my son was 
doing something like that, I would kill him straight away, because it is an offence to our God and a crime against our honour,' Kudaifa Abdul Lateff, father of three teenagers said. 'Homosexuals are nothing more than animals.'"
The IRIN report says there are only two small local NGOs trying 
to help the child sex workers. "On of them, Iraqi Peace and Better Future (IPBF), has collected the names of more than 50 teenage boys who say they cannot leave the trade because of threats. Few cases have been resolved, however. 'We have been trying to do our best in taking those unlucky boys and girls from the streets of the capital,” said Abdallah Jassim, spokesman for IPBF. 'But sometimes we are stopped by the gangs, who threaten us. And the government cannot offer us special security on a daily basis.' The Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) is also waiting for approval and funding for a proposed rehabilitation project for teenagers, it said. So far it has had few donors.""Meanwhile, with few positive prospects in sight, many boys in Baghdad are living in fear, urging that someone, somewhere come up with a solution to their plight. 'I hope that one day I will live without the fear that I may find my father with a gun or a knife ready to kill me because he has discovered what I do for a living,' said Youssef Hatab, a 15 year-old boy."
Where are the voices of the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the U.S. commercial gay press demanding that the enrollment of Iraqi youth, by criminal gangs using force and threat , into a life of prostitution be ended by U.S. occupying forces?Why haven't our U.S. gay institutions demanded of Washington that it use all its influence
to prevent the puppet Iraqi government it finances, and whose strings it pulls behind the scenes, from criminalizing homosexuality and making it a capital crime, as the religious authorities want? This is part and parcel of the problem I raised in a recent article for Gay City News -- that our major gay institutions, by and large, ignore the oppression of same-sexers in other cultures, and flee from helping gay youth either at home or abroad for fear of being tarnished with suspicions of pedophilia in the context of the anti-pedophile witch-hunts in this country (only heightened by the endless revelations of the sexual exploitation of children by the hypocritical, conservative closet cases of the Catholic Church). This silence, this ostrich-like attitude, is shameful -- something we should remember while this year's celebrations of "Gay Pride" are still ringing in our ears.
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Comments
Who will forget the photos from the Iraqi prisoners who were naked and piled up on top of each other by the American and British troops?Doesn't that say something? Why would you ask the American institutions for help when they're the source of the problem? Don't you think perhaps a lot of the occupiers (right wing Jews and Christians) would love to see Muslim and Arab men become abused emotionally and sexually, just to keep them quiet? Didn't Roman top ranking male figures use sex as a way to dehumanize, terrorize and abuse the young male slaves or lower ranking male as a way of over-powering them?Who says that the boys who are forced to do such act for living, are actually homosexual? Is like calling the boys who were raped or sexually abused by the Catholic church, homosexuals?!Don't you think Americans would love to convert all Muslim nations into parking lots just like Afghanistan, stripped them off from their identity. Wouldn't it be much easier to take over a nation that is poor, abused, neglected, and have no self-esteem like those boys who are sexually abused?
Posted by: A straight woman! | August 9, 2005 11:08 PM
Once again, you write about something few other blogs and almost NO ONE in the American media is covering. Thank you, and I hope this catches the eye of IGLHRC and other gay rights organizations, as well as some of our more open-minded and progressive politicians. The havoc this nation has wrought in Iraq continues to boggle the mind.
Posted by: jstheater | August 9, 2005 11:09 AM
I agree that it is another blight on us as a nation that we are allowing this to continue. However I would call to task the members of the religious right who speak from their pious high horse and do nothing to alleviate actually human suffering, to protect children from real threats.
As for the gay organizations in the U.S. they have failed to address the issues facing Gay Americans in a unified and forceful way and the gay community itself is increasingly under seige. Perhaps they are overwhelmed by the magnitude of homophobia around the world.
Posted by: Kalil | August 9, 2005 10:53 AM
I have to agree with Doug, the silence =is= deafening. When someone prominent is caught pants-down on video, bet the volume gets cranked up. But, indeed, where the hell is Dobson, Falwell, etc, etc, etc. You'd think this would be job one.
Posted by: M. Douglas Wray | August 9, 2005 10:53 AM
I don't think anyone is saying that, Brian. However, the opportunity has been provided by the occupation, which has put a corrupt, authoritarian, but ultimately supine puppet government in power. A genuinely democratic, representative government without occupying forces present would have sufficient control over the territory that it could prevent such activities.
As the bulk of Iraqis reject their occupiers, and at least a very large number supports the armed resistance, the state is too busy suppressing this dissent to ensure the safety of 16 year old boys.
Plus, the occupiers presumably reckon that despite their spiteful talk, the clerics keep things more stable. They're right for the most part.
Posted by: lenin | August 9, 2005 10:05 AM
"because of the intervention of the God fearing Americans."
The people actually _running_ the traffic, the ones who actually _do_ force boys into prostitution, are blameless drones merely following the dictates of the Great Powers?
Posted by: Brian Siano | August 9, 2005 09:26 AM
How ironic that this evil should come into being, in Iraq, because of the intervention of the God fearing Americans.
