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Josh Marshall flags this bit of "actual good news" that Baghdad is "now safe enough to drink, party and have sex." While I see where Josh is coming from — it’s certainly good that liquor vendors don’t have to worry as much about marauding bands of religious fundamentalists targeting them for murder — the picture is a bit more complicated.
“It is terrible to see prostitution increased like this,” said Hanaa Edwar, secretary general of the Iraqi human rights group Al-Amal. “These are women from displaced families, poor people, people who have to sell themselves to get money for their families and children.”
Indeed. These are women whose lives were destroyed by the war and are plunged into conditions of degradation. One need not ignore the increased security in Baghdad to reflect on this as well.
Tags: best war ever
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It’s also worth noting that the fate of Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan is even more dire, and goes largely unnoticed. One to two million refugees abroad (anyone who says they have more precise numbers than that is, well, lying) and we hardly ever hear about them in the States. And, oh yeah, there have been significant reports of Iraqi refugees resorting to prostitution for years now. But the reporting hasn’t gotten much traction.
Less anti-sex worker hysteria, please? The displacement and hardship imposed by the war are all too real, but why the obsession with prostitutes? Do you really believe that all sex work is inherently “degradation”? Frankly I think Josh Marshall’s take made more sense. In the very article you’re quoting, the reporter talks to actual prostitutes, and what they say doesn’t really support the victimization narrative you’re spinning here. But instead of quoting them, you want us to make assumptions about their motivations based on the say-so of some NGO apparatchik.
It was not my intent to promote a victimization narrative. I trust the NGO worker to make a balanced statement about the impact of the war on prostitution.