Sex Slavery Under the Islamic Republic of Iran

19, 2007 - Courtesy of Iranian arab-parasts, Islamic Infamy Continues in Iran Whilst Iranians' Pride Nowhere to be FoundA measure of the success of Islamists in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women. In Iran for 27 years, the ruling Islamists have enforced humiliating rules and punishments on women and girls, enslaving them in a gender apartheid system of segregation, forced veiling, second class status, lashing and stoning to death.Islamists have added another way to dehumanize women and girls: buying and selling them for prostitution. Exact numbers of victims are impossible to obtain, but according to an official source in Tehran, there has been a 635 percent increase in the number of teen-age girls in prostitution. The magnitude of this statistic conveys how rapidly this form of abuse has grown. In Tehran, there are an estimated 84,000 women and girls in prostitution, many of them are on the streets, others are in the 250 brothels that reportedly operate in the city. The trade is also international: Thousands of Iranian women and girls have been sold into sexual slavery abroad.The head of Iran's Interpol bureau believes that the sex-slave trade is one of the most profitable activities in Iran today. This criminal trade is not conducted outside the knowledge and participation of the ruling clerics.
Government officials themselves are involved in buying, selling and sexually abusing women and girls. Many of the girls come from impoverished rural areas. High unemployment -- 28 percent for youths from 15 to 29 years of age, and 43 percent for women from 15 to 20 years of age -- is a serious factor in driving restless youth to accept risky offers for work. Slave traders take advantage of any opportunity in which women and children are vulnerable. Following the recent earthquake in Bam, for example, orphaned girls have been kidnapped and taken to a known slave market in Tehran where Iranian and foreign traders meet.Popular destinations for victims of the slave trade are the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf. According to the head of the Tehran provincial judiciary, traffickers target girls between 13 and 17 (and some reports of girls as young as 8 and 10) to send to Arab countries. One ring was discovered after an 18-year-old girl escaped from a basement where a group of girls were held before being sent to Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The number of Iranian women and girls who are deported from Persian Gulf countries indicates the magnitude of the trade. Upon their return to Iran, the Islamists blame the victims, and often physically punish and imprison them. The women are examined to determine if they have engaged in "immoral activity." Based on the findings, officials can ban them from leaving the country again.