Iraqi Women Forced into Sexual Slavery

Interview with Houzan Mahmoud: Iraq’s desperate economic and security situation is leading to the trafficking of hundreds of Iraqi women into prostitution and sexual slavery.  Rising numbers of Iraqi women are being sold into sexual slavery every year because of the waning economy and dire security situation. Continue reading

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War forces Iraqi mom into prostitution

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) — Wedad can’t bear to live this way much longer. Disgusted by the work, she can hardly stand it. Wedad is a prostitute in Iraq. Sectarian violence claimed the life of her husband three years ago. Unable to rely on her family, Wedad tried getting a job to support her three young daughters, but found the men interviewing her didn’t want her for her work skills, only her body. Continue reading

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Will Iraq Crack Down on Sex Trafficking?

Ravaged by rights groups and upbraided by the U.S. for failing to take measures against human trafficking, the Iraqi government has been quietly working on a draft law to tackle the scourge. Baghdad was prodded into action late last year, after the release of the U.S. State Department’s “Trafficking in Persons Report,” according to Human Rights Minister Wijdan Mikhail Salim. “Let’s say it was a tough report about the situation in Iraq, and in so many cases it was right,” she says. Continue reading

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Iraq’s Unspeakable Crime: Mothers Pimping Daughters

She goes by Hinda, but that’s not her real name. That’s what she’s called by the many Iraqi sex traffickers and pimps who contact her several times a week from across the country. They think she is one of them, a peddler of sexual slaves. Little do they know that the stocky auburn-haired woman is an undercover human-rights activist who has been quietly mapping out their murky underworld since 2006. Continue reading

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Baghdad Underground A “railroad” of sorts helps Iraqi women escape servitude, abuse and even death

large_52769_68277On a bullet-scarred side street in Baghdad’s downtown, where U.S. Marines famously helped tear down the statue of Saddam Hussein in April of 2003, an inconspicuous entryway tucked between a steel-shuttered shop and a rickety candy stall leads to a flight of steep concrete stairs. Rusted water pipes run precariously over and across the poorly lit top step, tripping first-time visitors. The second-floor landing bottlenecks into a dark, empty hallway. Women in black abayas hurry across the buckled floor tiles in silence and quickly disappear through an unmarked plywood door on the right. Continue reading

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Iraqi Gays Face Gruesome Torture/ Murder Technique

BY DOUG IRELAND: As the murder campaign targeting Iraqi gays intensifies, a leading Arabic television network last week revealed the use of a horrifying new form of lethal torture against Iraqi gay men – anti-gay Shiite death squads are sealing their anuses with a powerful glue, then inducing diarrhea, which leads to a painful and agonizing death. Continue reading

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Religious superstitions, laws and customs are a disgrace of the 21st century

In the memory of Du’a Khalil Aswad and in condemnation of the flogging in public of a 17 year old girl in Pakistan. Du’a Khalil Aswad, a sweet 17 year old girl from Iraqi Kurdistan was publicly stoned to death in the town of Bashiqa before 1000 men. None of them did anything to stop the stoning; on the contrary they rejoiced at the killing and took footage of the carnage on their mobile phones. Continue reading

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OWFI pressures the legislators into a draft law against Trafficking of Women and Girls

yanarAfter two years of fact-finding and months of lobbying over local and regional televisions, newspapers, websites and radios, OWFI’s activism receive the first results: the legislators have forwadrded a draft law against trafficking of women and girls.  Continue reading

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In March 8 of 2009: Freedom and Equality remain the aim of our struggles

After seven years of occupation, women in Iraq still suffer from insecurity and outrageous misogynist practices of the Islamist and nationalist ruling militias. The multiplying anti-women media of the ruling militias attempt to abort all our modern achievements for women’s rights. Their media shows women who veil their presence from the society with ragged historic wear, thus announcing their total submission to the newly created male-chauvinist culture in Iraq. Continue reading

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2008 Gruber Women’s Rights Prize Press Release

yanar_mohammedsmallThree Activists to Share 2008 Gruber International Women’s Rights Prize for Advancing Gender Equality

July 8, 2008, New York, New York – The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation today announced that it will award the 2008 Women’s Rights Prize to three courageous activists who, at great risk to their own safety, have led successful efforts to advance women’s rights in their respective societies. Continue reading

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End the Genocide on Women of Iraq

Condemn the killings of women in Basra and Umara. he southern cities of Iraq which are totally under the grip of Islamist parties have turned into no-woman zones. Female physical appearance is not acceptable in the streets, educational institutions, or at work places. Although veiled and passive, death awaits women around street corners, in the market, and visits them inside their homes daily in the city of Basra. Continue reading

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Justice for Sara Jaffar Nimat!

Condemn another hideous stoning of an 11 years old girl in Kurdistan: Sara Jaffar Nimat is an 11-year-old girl from the town of Khanaqin in Iraqi Kurdistan. She was murdered on the 3rd August.  Continue reading

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Yanar Mohammed Receives Human Rights Award

yanar1The Eleanor Roosevelt Global Women’s Rights award was presented to Yanar Mohammed, the president of OWFI in recognition of her endeavors in voicing Iraqi women and protecting their rights in the post-war Iraq. Continue reading

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Killing women, destroying Iraq

36F3AC2C-C1A7-4555-B776-D29442E9DC3A_mw1024_n_sBy Houzan Mahmoud, from the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq: What the brutal ‘honour killing’ of a girl in Iraq’s Kurdistan province shows about the country’s headlong descent into sectarian violence. Houzan Mahmoud, an Iraqi Kurd who lives in Britain, is the overseas representative of the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq and initiator of the Campaign against Killing and Stoning of Women in Kurdistan. Continue reading

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