A specialist for the organization stated that one out of every eight Iraqis has now left their home, adding that half a million have been forced to leave in the last six months. Approximately 2 million people have left the country, while 1. Authorities are clamoring for emergency aid for Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan. At the same time, Iraqi women's organizations have blamed the current government for the rise in prostitution amongst female Iraqi refugees.
Returnees to Iraq have confirmed that Iraqi women have been forced into prostitution in order to make ends meet and even to obtain residence permits in Syria, where unemployment is extremely high, as well as in Jordan.
Muhammad Nur al-Din Issa pointed out that Iraqi women have been forced to flee from their homes because of sectarian cleansing, only to become prostitutes in other countries. Issa, who has returned to Iraq with the intention of moving his family back from Lattakia in Syria, where he managed to find employment in an Iraqi restaurant, added that, "sex traders are doing a roaring business, opening nightclubs with Syrian entrepreneurs and Iraqi bodies.
Some clubs employ even larger numbers of women. In a phone conversation with Niqash, Salwa, an Iraqi woman who managed to flee to Syria, told us that, "after my husband was murdered by armed men in his hairdressing salon at the beginning of this year, I had to work as a prostitute, since I was unable to find other employment. Others repeat stories about deportations after failing to meet residency requirements, which has turned Iraqis into "beggars at embassy doors".
The New York Times published a long report on prostitution among Iraqi refugees, describing the tragedy of female refugees and how they are forced into prostitution after fleeing murder in their country. The American newspaper claims that the Damascene suburb of Sednayah is a center for refugee prostitution due to its numerous nightclubs, adding that many have been cheated and raped there and elsewhere. The Kurdish government has announced that , Iraqis have fled rising sectarian violence in the rest of the country for Kurdistan, a number which has been corroborated by a report prepared by an international group that follows the status of refugees.
