The U.S. invasion of Iraq has definitely not benefited anyone. It has
caused great hardships and adversities for the many Iraqi refugees that
have escaped from worn torn Iraq. The majority of the refugees fled to the
neighboring country of Syria. Many of the men have been killed and left
widowed wives and young children behind. The number of Iraqi refugees in
Syria is an estimated 1.5 million and about 2 million in other countries
in the Middle East.
Violence, inflation, and the absence of government aid have left women
with very few options. There arent very many job opportunitues for
refugess; and especially women. With children to be fed, clothed, and
schooled women have to resort to prostitution in order to keep their
children alive. As little as $8 dollars a day women are compelled to sell
their bodies and souls just to keep a bit of food on the table in fear of
their children starving.
With the exception of Palestinians, refugees are not legally allowed to
have jobs in Syria. Numerous Iraqi refugees are living off their savings,
which are dwindled by daily expenses. Many are marooned in Syria,and few
western embassies are now authorizing visas, claiming that Iraq has
become a liberated country after the fall of Saddam. With the economic
situation worsening for refugees, officials say, “It's no surprise that
Syria is seeing a rise in child exploitation and prostitution”.
The silence surrounding the predicament of prostitution draws attention to
the international community’s failure to recognize the distressing
conditions of Iraqi refugees and provide them with better opportunities
and advantages.
Some of the women, in search of work outside the home for the first time,
and living in a country with a very high unemployment rate, find that
their only profitable way to make money is to resort to prostitution.
The inexpensive cost of prostitution has made Syria a well known place for
sex tourists from wealthier countries in the Middle East.
There is an estimated 50,000 Iraqi women working as prostitutes in Syria,
but it is not known how many of the prostitutes are children and teenage
girls.
The United States has repeatedly claimed that they have come to Iraq to
liberate and free the Iraqi’s from the tyrant ruler Saddam. But what I
really see in an imperialistic country that has bullied and vandalized
Iraq, caused sectarian violence, robbed the country from its only useful
resource, and have caused almost half of the country’s population to
become refugees.
The women who are 60-65 percent of the Iraqi population are being ignored.
Action needs to be taken to help these neglected women who are suffering
from casualties of war, the loss of their husbands and family, and the
cruel standards of living that they are forced to live as refugees.
The real victims of this chaos are women and children; they are left to
pay the price. I find it quite ironic that women consist of half of the
human race and they are subjected to oppression and degradation. I wonder
if life for women will ever change and become any better.
