Roj Bash Kurdistan

Seven people sentenced to imprisonment for prostitution in 2013

Zainab Ahmad is tall, heavy set 40 year old woman with rigid eyes and tattooed eyebrows sits in her jail cell waiting for a verdict that could sentence her up to twenty years in jail.

Three months prior to this moment, Zeitoon, Zainab’s daughter, sued her for forced prostitution. When Zeitoon was only twelve years old, her mother forced her to go with a man who paid one hundred thousand ID (80 USD) to have sexual relations with Zeitoon for one hour. Zainab was immediately arrested after her daughter filed a complaint against her mother.

Zainab was involved with a group of prostitutes that forced her to find them new woman. Eventually she offered them her daughter when she could not fulfill their demands.

Zainab told her story to Kirkuk Now as she was waiting to be taken into custody at the Kirkuk police station.

“The group I was working for kept demanding more and more women from me and when I couldn’t meet their demands, I offered them my twelve year old daughter,” she said sadly, “I enticed my daughter by buying her a new mobile phone and clothes.”

Zainab looked sad yet beautiful, wearing a black dress that added to the smooth complexion of her skin. She would bite her lip from time to time as she revisited her past. “I agreed to give my daughter to a man for one hundred thousand ID. He was accompanied by two other men and they caused my daughter much pain. She was only twelve years old at the time and she didn’t agree to do this. I forced her,” Zainab told Kirkuk Now.

Joan Hassan, the head of the Women and Child Affairs Committee in Kirkuk, deemed the case a “disaster”. “The girl is too young and the mother trafficked her, which is illegal,” she stated.

The manager of the Women’s Section in the Directorate of Custody and Transfer in Kirkuk, Burhan Majeed stated, “We have compiled all of Zeitoon’s medical records and sent them to the court to help her case.”

Zainab’s husband and their daughter left Kirkuk and have moved to Baghdad after the incident occurred.

Recently, prostitution has greatly increased in Kirkuk and many people have been arrested for either promoting or participating in prostitution. The Kirkuk Court has sentenced seven women to prison for leading a prostitution ring. There have been protests concerning the current procedure of jailing all the women together regardless of their crime. Joan Hassan expressed her concern that, “The idea of prostitution as a source of income may spread among the inmates in the prison due to their exposure to these women.”

Zainab blames her husband’s lack of responsibility to their family as the reason for her joining a prostitution ring. “I was forced to find a way to support my family and I chose the wrong path,” Zainab explained. She first started out as a prostitute on her own and eventually joined a group of women.

Zainab was sentenced to twenty years in prison by the Kirkuk Court for human trafficking and prostitution. She was transferred to a prison in Baghdad.

Sameera Kamal, Kirkuk Now

http://kirkuknow.com/english/index.php/ ... stitution/