Human Goods

(Source: Marie Claire)

Marie Claire published a piece by Danielle Pergament on the trend of Iraqi refugees engaging in survival sex (you can also see a video under an April entry on Human Goods called “Survival Sex: The Untalked-about Consequence of War”).

Pergament details the lives of a few women who formerly led middle class lives in Iraq, until “the Americans arrived.” Some of them were able to use their skills to work as translators for awhile, but when work in the Green Zone became too dangerous, they fled to places like Jordan.

In many countries, refugees are given sanctuary but are not permitted to work. Since war eliminates many means of male support because male family members are lost, killed, “disappeared,” often women, and children too, have no choice but to engage in sex work for survival.

Weirdly, and unnervingly, some of these women found themselves serving the same basic clientele (military, foreign contractors, etc) that they used to translate for, when they had the right to work.

Here’s the teaser to the article:

Imagine: One day you’re a nurse leading a quiet middle-class life; a few years later you’re in a strange country doing the unthinkable: selling yourself. For some Iraqi refugees, prostitution is the only trick they feel they’ve got left.

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