One of the many horrible effects of colonial rule is poverty among the original population; maybe a few people benefit and become rich, but mostly, the only people with money are the colonial rulers.
So it’s unsurprising that many people in colonized countries turn to desperate measures to support themselves and their families.
The women are too afraid and ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used. They have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children — for as little as $8 a day.
“People shouldn’t criticize women, or talk badly about them,” says 37-year-old Suha as she adjusts the light colored scarf she wears these days to avoid extremists who insist women cover themselves. “They all say we have lost our way, but they never ask why we had to take this path.”
A mother of three, she wears light makeup, a gold pendant of Iraq around her neck, and an unexpected air of elegance about her.
“I don’t have money to take my kid to the doctor. I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child, because I am a mother,” she says, explaining why she prostitutes herself.
Anger and frustration rise in her voice as she speaks.
“No matter what else I may be, no matter how off the path I may be, I am a mother!” [Full story]
What drives Iraqi women to prostitution? Many of them have lost husbands, fathers, or sons to the war or to increasing violence; some are afraid to let male children work because they fear losing them. Why can’t they just work a regular job? It’s not safe.
When politicians and generals and George W. Bush talks about helping the Iraqi people, what are they doing for these women? How are they going to fix the ruin that this war has brought to their lives? When are they going to step back let them fix it themselves? Why is the U.S. continuing to use Iraq to build up and enrich American companies while Iraqi people go jobless, and continuing to fight a war when it is Iraqi people who pay in blood? Considering how often it’s said that the U.S. went into this war to free Iraq, to help Iraq, it sure seems like Iraqis are hurting more and more the longer we’re over there.
