Iraqi women: Prostituting ourselves to feed our children

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/15/iraq.prostitution/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- 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!" Watch a woman describe turning to prostitution to "save my child" » snip

Violence, increased cost of living, and lack of any sort of government aid leave women like these with few other options, according to humanitarian workers.

[LadyAziz]

1. What have we done?

We've managed to destory a entire country and it's infrastuctures. These people are worse off under us than under Saddam, they have suffered for too long. :-(

[liberalmuse]

2. But, 'The Surge Is Working'....

Really, this is enough. It has to end. I'm watching another one of Bush's atrocities on HBO, 'When the Levees Broke'. I didn't watch tv when Katrina happened (I read, and listened to radio), and never saw this shit. Hearing about it was enough to make me break down, scream, cry and gnash my teeth, but seeing the pictures...Fucking Christ!!! It's a fucking joy living in Bushland. The fucking pigs are slopping up at the trough (part II-part I was under Reagan/Bush I), a country is obliterated back to the stone age, little girls get gang-raped by our finest, people get tortured, maimed, slaughtered in the streets, little boys get burned alive, and women who were once educated and lived with dignity are forced to sell their bodies to feed their babies. There is not anything, ANYTHING that will make this right. I don't care if Bush ends up like Mussolini, it would be far too good for this piece of shit, scum, his cabal, and those Americans who support him. They have so much blood and human misery on their heads. I can only wish karma comes calling for the lot of them. NOW!

[PassingFair]

3. Don't they know that prostitution EMPOWERS women?

They need to join the "sex positive" room and
get with it!

:sarcasm: