Prostitutes conquer Kirkuk: a report written with blood

Nada is a 26-year-old girl. She is a dark tall lady. She came to Um Latif’s house while I was interviewing. I realised she had gone with a customer some hours before. When Nada saw me in the room, she did not enter. But after a while she asked us to interview her too. When she came in I could feel that she was very tired and semi compos mentis. Her mediator said: “Most of the girls drink alcohol. They also take drugs.”

Nada explained why. She said: “I am always sad. I am depressed. When I come home I either drink or take drugs.” She told me the story of her addiction. When her family lived in Samara, she ran from her home escaping from her brothers after her husband was killed in the Sunni-Shiite conflict. Since then her life has been constant big fear. “I am sacred that my brothers will find and kill me.”

Although prostitution is illegal and should be prevented by the police and authorities, as far as Um Latif’s network concerned, the matter is quite contrary. Some policemen and officers are part of her prostitution market ring. She says: “Sometimes high-ranking police officers phone me and threaten me because I have not taken girls to them for free.” She gave the example of one of the police stations. “They took away a girl named Nura allegedly because she was under arrest. After some time Nura came back. She said they had raped her at the police station.”

In following up this report, I managed to obtain the names of three police lieutenant colonels and colonels and other high ranking officers who are the prostitutes’ customers. But for journalistic morality we have not published their names although their identities are kept at Lvin magazine.

Latif’s mother even said that she has sponsors at police stations who bring girls to her for prostitution. She asserts: “They have brought me many girls.” But although the police are supporting her in her business, she says “they also harass us a lot. I change my place every month.” In spite of this she talks proudly about the strong support she has.

She also talks on behalf of a political party. She says: “I belong to one of the political parties. I work for them. I have handed over three terrorists to them so far.” She indicated that they also have customers who are terrorists. She says: “The terrorists have come here several times and taken away girls for sex.”

The tales of prostitutes travel beyond Kirkuk and to become the focal point of talk for the youth and officials in Sulaymaniyah and Arbil. About the sex trips taken by people of Sulaymaniyah and Arbil to Kirkuk, Latif’s mother says: “A number of officials have come here from Sulaymaniyah and Arbil. They have taken away girls for one week, ten days or two weeks for US$700 to US$800. We have the names of those military officials of Sulaymaniyah and Arbil who have taken away girls for sex. Most of the customers are military officers, police and security men.”

Um Latif feels sad because “the girls are often beaten and harmed especially by security men. PUK’s security men are the worst.”

About the spread of prostitution in Kirkuk, Um Latif says: “There is no neighbourhood in Kirkuk that does not have one or two brothels. Even in the Kurdish suburbs like Shorija, Rahimawa and Iskan they have special houses. But the prostitutes are mostly Arabs and they have come here from the middle and south of Iraq.”

Some of these sex workers have been in Syria and Jordan and then returned to Iraq and there is fear that they might have AIDs. When we were at Um Latif’s house a woman came back with two big suitcases. Um Latif said: “This girl is coming back from Syria. She got married there a month ago.” The girl looked exhausted. But her sponsor did not hide the fact that “there are many women in Kirkuk with AIDS but no one gives a damn about them.” But she assures her own customers by saying: “My girls all use medicine and are clean. I do not take girls who have got AIDs.”

In spite of this she does not care about the use of condoms. She says: “Condoms are rubbish. They do not prevent anything.” The prostitutes’ nanny told me that the prostitutes who are ill and have AIDs work at hotels at the night time “such as Hotel Nergis, Hotel Jihan, Hotel Ta’mim, Hotel Diwan and others. They work at night and go home at day time.”

A police source said: “In the past few months some prostitutes were at the removal section of the police. Then they were sentenced to life. But they were all covered by the general amnesty. And some are under 18. For example a girl called Huda Musa. She was from Mosul and she was only 15-years-old.”