Help Iraqi women
Posted by Vox on 1 September 2007
Another sick chapter in the story of Iraqi women forced into prostitution: Unsurprisingly, it’s U.S. defense contractors who are taking major advantage of the situation. Apparently, there’s a disgusting Web site called the International Sex Guide (found via a locked entry on Sex & Race Discussion) which has sections for many countries, including Iraq. The shit some of these guys say is horrifically disgusting.
Not long before I got here there used to be a “Baghdad Country Club” up by the palace. Basically it was a small restaurant with a liquor store and girls for hire. But some jerk-off had to open his mouth and there was a crack down in the name of freedom, mom, and apple pie. Actually it was more like an anti-P4P jihad. And we wonder why marines are going nuts and contractors like me are charging ridiculous money. At least in Vietnam they had the “Oh, me so horny” girls. [Source]
That’s far from the only offensive post, and most of them offer tips to finding prostitutes, including locations of brothels.
I find it increasingly ridiculous that some people believe we’re actually in Iraq to help the Iraqi people. Maybe that’s what some on the homefront and a few idealistic soldiers think, but so many mercenaries — I mean, defense contractors — and soldiers appear to disagree. They aren’t there to help Iraq, they’re there to make money and get cheap sex (if they’re not raping women instead).
Luckily, there are organizations trying to help women in Iraq so that they aren’t forced into the sex trade. MADRE is working to set up shelters for Iraqi women and offer them educational opportunities, and support women who are trying to organize community action and take leadership and media roles. More information is available at here, and they have an entire section on Iraq.
The Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq is also working to stop violence against Iraqi women. Though they are focusing on “honor killings,” they are also trying to help women forced into the sex trade.
Other organizations, like Global Giving, have organized to raise money for shelters for Iraqi women and loans to help them start businesses.
If the U.S. government isn’t going to help these women out of the situation it put them in, and U.S. mercenaries and soldiers are just going to exploit the situation, then it’s time to support alternative organizations who are helping Iraqi women and men rebuild their country, start businesses, bring together communities and become leaders, and remove the violent poverty that forces women into the sex trade in the first place.
This should be a goal in every country listed at the International Sex Guide. Sex workers should be in the field by choice, not because there are no other alternatives. And guys like that need to be shut down.
EDIT: And Black Amazon sums up her feelings about that fucking Web site.
2 September 2007 at 9:23
It just underscores a major problem I have with prostitution and the question of choice/force. What evidence is there, has there ever been, that men would ever allow there to be no sex for sale whatsoever? A sex class is required. The ability to buy access to a woman’s body is required, not just sometimes allowed in some places or sometimes unjustly forced in others. If there were ever a time when all the men who use women as consumable commodities became magically willing to no longer do so, to “get” or have sex with women via simply being a person a woman willlingly wants to fuck instead of money being the deciding factor - when that day comes and some women still decide to do what gets called “sex work,” then I will be able to have a clearer thought about the whole thing. As it stands, the equation looks like, to me - one woman’s choice to *not* have sex for money means another woman somewhere else will necessarily be forced to, because it is not allowed for NO women to be available in that way. Some must, period. The cheaper, the browner, the more other-ized, the better.
12 September 2007 at 3:11
This sister disturbs me by her pessimistic view of men in the world. First, she talks as if there are not men out there who have virtues other then $$ and who are in sexual relationships. Because there are! I have seen more poverty stricken men with women around them then rich men. So men ARE learning to be attractive without having money…
Second, I believe it was not her intention to degrade anyone. However, her repetition of “The cheaper, the browner, the more other-ized, the better.² is degrading and offensive no matter what the purpose is in repeating! She for one should irradicate this talk by not repeating, in much the same way that white American men had to irradicate the use the N-word in America by NOT using it. By repeating these offensive sayings (for any reason), we just create new generations of people who are aware of the former stereotypes and prejudices.
In the spirit of Ramadan now, I will pray for this women, as well as my sisters and brothers in Iraq. May Allah swt heal them from their suffering and bring justice quickly by punishing the evil do-ers. This is my only prayer from Allah swt this Ramadan. Please, if we all forget our trivial wishes in this life and just thank Allah swt, and only ask for justice in Iraq then I believe HE will make it happen. There is not one material thing in this life that we need more then the Iraqis need JUSTICE!
12 September 2007 at 3:13
May Allah swt forgive me for repeating her words!!
I only did it out of necessity and I used quotes to show that they were not my own words. God forbid, I would ever use those words to make a point.
12 September 2007 at 20:31
I don’t mean to speak for Joan, but I think that she was using those examples to illustrate a point. That is beyond a doubt what the men who populate Web sites such as the International Sex Guide truly feel and think, that women in other countries are foreign, exotic, and entirely there for their pleasure. Her point was entirely that thinking that way about women is degrading and wrong.
That said, you raise some excellent points as well. I don’t think pretending those words (or words like them) are never said or thought will make them go away, but you are so absolutely right to point out that they are offensive.
29 October 2007 at 13:37
[...] U.S. “contractors” (mercenaries) in Iraq and Afghanistan do seem to take more advantage of their impunity than the military does, it’s quite clear that the military, too, abuses [...]