Skip to main content

FM
Former Member

 

 


Syrian women collecting food and supplies from the UNHCR at Jordan's Zaatari refugee camp on 30 January 2013

Long queues of Syrian refugees wind around the UNHCR's building in Amman, Jordan


 

Before the war began, Kazal was in love with her neighbour in Homs. "He was 20 years old and I dreamed of marrying him one day," she says. "I never thought I would marry someone I didn't love, but my family and I have been through some hard times since coming to Amman."

 

Kazal says she is 18 but looks much younger. She has just got divorced from a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia who paid her family about US $3,100 (UK Β£2,000) to marry her. The marriage lasted one week.

 

"I lived with my husband in Amman, but we weren't happily married. He treated me like a servant, and didn't respect me as a wife. He was very strict with me. I'm happy that we're divorced."

Her huge, blue eyes fill with tears when she talks about the marriage

"I agreed to it so I could help my family. When I got engaged I cried a lot. I won't get married for money again. In the future I hope to marry a Syrian boy who's my own age."

 

'Survival sex'


Andrew Harper, the Representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Jordan, is concerned that some of the 500,000 Syrian refugees in the country are increasingly turning to such desperate measures.

 

"We don't have enough resources to give aid to all those who need it. The vast majority of refugees are women and children. Many of them are not used to going out to work, so survival sex becomes an option."

 

His office in central Amman is surrounded by hundreds of newly arrived refugees, waiting in long lines to register for aid. He says the UNHCR has intervened with some families who have been offering their daughters up for early marriage.

 

"I can't think of anything more disgusting than people targeting refugee women… You can call it rape, you can call it prostitution, you can call it what you want but it's preying on the weakest.

 

"The government and people of Jordan are doing what they can but people are poor and we have to get more resources into the community so families aren't forced into something that deep down I believe they don't want to do."

 

Short-term marriages between men from the Gulf and Syrian girls reportedly happened before the war began. But Kazal's mother Manal, who dresses conservatively like her daughter in an abaya and headscarf, says she would have never considered such an arrangement in the past.

"Life here is very hard and we receive very little aid. We have a baby who needs lots of milk every day, and we can't afford to pay the rent. So I had to sacrifice Kazal to help the other members of the family."

She says that the marriage was arranged by an Amman-based NGO called Kitab al-Sunna, which gives cash, food and medicines to refugees. It is funded by donations from individuals across the Arab world.

"When I went for help at the NGO they asked to see my daughter. They said they would find a husband for her."

Syrian matchmaker

The director of Kitab al-Sunna, Zayed Hamad, says that he is sometimes approached by men who want to marry Syrian women.

 

"They ask for girls who are over 18. They're motivated by helping these women, especially those whose husbands died as martyrs in Syria. Arab men see Syrian women as good housewives, and they find them very pretty, so traditionally it is desirable to marry one."

Um Mazed is a 28-year-old Syrian refugee from Homs who has started earning money by arranging marriages between Syrian girls and Arab men.

In a grubby room covered with mould, she fields phone calls from prospective brides and grooms.

"The men are usually between 50 and 80, and they ask for girls who have white skin and blue or green eyes. They want them very young, no older than 16."

She says she has presented more than a hundred Syrian girls to these men, who pay her a fee of US $70 for an introduction, and about US $310 if it results in a marriage.

"If these marriages end in divorce after a short time, that's not my issue, I'm just the matchmaker. As far as I'm concerned it's not prostitution because there's a contract between the groom and bride."

Um Mazed means "Mother of Mazed", one of her three children. She doesn't want her identity known because she's ashamed of what she is doing for a living, but claims she has no choice.

"How are we supposed to live when the NGOs give us so little help? How are we supposed to pay our rent? We're not getting enough help to live decently, that's why I'm doing this - so my family and I can survive."

 

 

Replies sorted oldest to newest

SURVIVAL SEX: A FORM OF PROSTITUTION

 

Survival sex is a form of prostitution, engaged in by people in extreme need. It describes the practice of people who are homeless or otherwise disadvantaged in society, trading sex for food, a place to sleep, or other basic needs, or for drugs. The term is used by sex trade and poverty  researchers and aid workers.

 

Some thinkers suggest that people are motivated to prostitute themselves because it is familiar β€“ specifically to victims of child sexual abuse.Other researchers state that, while some see it as a normal job, the vast majority want to get out of the industry given the potential for disease and dangerous clients

 

Courtesy: Wikipedia

FM

Call it prostitution, or call it rape but if you are living in Syria, especially if you are a young woman, Survival sex is rapidly becoming a way of life, with Saudi Arabian men willing to pay as much as $3,000, a fortune in the state of Syria today, you could call it simply Sex For Survival and with over 500,000 Syrian refugees estimated to be clogging camps and border crossings, most of them with no money and very little food, they provide rich pickings for the rich of close by countries, such as Saudi Arabia, so much so, that many young Syrian women are turning to this new found industry just to feed their families and friends in ever increasing numbers. Read on to find out why a once extremely protected sex, the females of Syria are turning to this age old profession and why the elders turn a blind eye.

FM
Originally Posted by BGurd_See:

This is a departure from the veil wearing chastity image we come to expect from the Arab women. Now they feel starvation like many in African nation, they turn into common prostitutes.  

You are a cruel miserable man. Syrian girls do not fit the profile of a fundamentalist hijab wearing wahabi. Even so, do you not think this present state of affairs is odious?

 

Secondly, this is an evil wrought of war. That women and children suffer most in these instances is the universal expectation. This is not an instance of the "proud and disdainful" being brought to their knees per your miserable conclusion. The Hindus in Benares do it constantly and they are motivated solely by the money aspect

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by Danyael:
Originally Posted by BGurd_See:

This is a departure from the veil wearing chastity image we come to expect from the Arab women. Now they feel starvation like many in African nation, they turn into common prostitutes.  

You are a cruel miserable man. Syrian girls do not fit the profile of a fundamentalist hijab wearing wahabi. Even so, do you not think this present state of affairs is odious?

 

Secondly, this is an evil wrought of war. That women and children suffer most in these instances is the universal expectation. This is not an instance of the "proud and disdainful" being brought to their knees per your miserable conclusion. The Hindus in Benares do it constantly and they are motivated solely by the money aspect


Don't blame the messenger, address only the message. When Amerindians resort to prostitution do we hear an outcry from you? No all we hear is that it is PPP's fault. The moral of the story here is that those like yourself who hold their noses up in the air and behave like they are above desperate activity, they succumb just like those they criticize when push come to shove.

FM
Originally Posted by BGurd_See:
Originally Posted by Danyael:
Originally Posted by BGurd_See:

This is a departure from the veil wearing chastity image we come to expect from the Arab women. Now they feel starvation like many in African nation, they turn into common prostitutes.  

You are a cruel miserable man. Syrian girls do not fit the profile of a fundamentalist hijab wearing wahabi. Even so, do you not think this present state of affairs is odious?

 

Secondly, this is an evil wrought of war. That women and children suffer most in these instances is the universal expectation. This is not an instance of the "proud and disdainful" being brought to their knees per your miserable conclusion. The Hindus in Benares do it constantly and they are motivated solely by the money aspect


Don't blame the messenger, address only the message. When Amerindians resort to prostitution do we hear an outcry from you? No all we hear is that it is PPP's fault. The moral of the story here is that those like yourself who hold their noses up in the air and behave like they are above desperate activity, they succumb just like those they criticize when push come to shove.

You obviously have your thinking faculties affixed to your posterior. When anyone is forced by prevailing conditions outside their control into  compromising positions as grave as prostitution, the matter is not about who complains or not.

 

It does not matter if they were snobbish or otherwise. It is about the morality of the prevailing circumstance and apprehension of that should be immediate; one is forced to do what one would not normally do based on a need for survival under depraved circumstances.

 

You are too much an ass to comprehend that so one need not waste their time explaining to you what your parents ought to have instilled a long time ago.

FM
Originally Posted by asj:

QUOTE "It's not prostitution because there's a contract between the groom and bride... How are we supposed to live when the NGOs give us so little help? ”UNQUOTE

 

Um Mazed Matchmaker


Hmm!!! legal prostitution?

You ASJ have been deleting my posts on the subject matter cuz it tell the truth about these dirty wahabs.  Why you protecting these terrorists.

FM
Originally Posted by baseman:
Originally Posted by asj:

QUOTE "It's not prostitution because there's a contract between the groom and bride... How are we supposed to live when the NGOs give us so little help? ”UNQUOTE

 

Um Mazed Matchmaker


Hmm!!! legal prostitution?

You ASJ have been deleting my posts on the subject matter cuz it tell the truth about these dirty wahabs.  Why you protecting these terrorists.

Bai I have not been deleting any post, muchless yours, I hate these wahabis just like you do. They are the reason for the Muslim demise as of now.

FM

Add Reply

×
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×