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Sex Slave Jihad
Front Page Magazine ^ | January 27, 2004 | Donna M. Hughes

Posted on 01/27/2004 3:58:20 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

A measure of Islamic fundamentalists’ success in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women. In Iran for 25 years, the ruling mullahs have enforced humiliating and sadistic 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.

Joining a global trend, the fundamentalists 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 teenage 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 fundamentalists. Government officials themselves are involved in buying, selling, and sexually abusing women and girls.

Many of the girls come from impoverished rural areas. Drug addiction is epidemic throughout Iran, and some addicted parents sell their children to support their habits. High unemployment 28 percent for youth 15-29 years of age and 43 percent for women 15-20 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. For example, following the recent earthquake in Bam, 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 province judiciary, traffickers target girls between 13 and 17, although there are reports of some 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 Islamic fundamentalists 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.

Police have uncovered a number of prostitution and slavery rings operating from Tehran that have sold girls to France, Britain, Turkey as well. One network based in Turkey bought smuggled Iranian women and girls, gave them fake passports, and transported them to European and Persian Gulf countries. In one case, a 16-year-old girl was smuggled to Turkey, and then sold to a 58-year-old European national for $20,000.

In the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan, local police report that girls are being sold to Pakistani men as sex-slaves. The Pakistani men marry the girls, ranging in age from 12 to 20, and then sell them to brothels called “Kharabat” in Pakistan. One network was caught contacting poor families around Mashad and offering to marry girls. The girls were then taken through Afghanistan to Pakistan where they were sold to brothels. In the southeastern border province of Sistan Baluchestan, thousands of Iranian girls reportedly have been sold to Afghani men. Their final destinations are unknown.

One factor contributing to the increase in prostitution and the sex slave trade is the number of teen girls who are running away from home. The girls are rebelling against fundamentalist imposed restrictions on their freedom, domestic abuse, and parental drug addictions. Unfortunately, in their flight to freedom, the girls find more abuse and exploitation. Ninety percent of girls who run away from home will end up in prostitution. As a result of runaways, in Tehran alone there are an estimated 25,000 street children, most of them girls. Pimps prey upon street children, runaways, and vulnerable high school girls in city parks. In one case, a woman was discovered selling Iranian girls to men in Persian Gulf countries; for four years, she had hunted down runaway girls and sold them. She even sold her own daughter for US$11,000.

Given the totalitarian rule in Iran, most organized activities are known to the authorities. The exposure of sex slave networks in Iran has shown that many mullahs and officials are involved in the sexual exploitation and trade of women and girls. Women report that in order to have a judge approve a divorce they have to have sex with him. Women who are arrested for prostitution say they must have sex with the arresting officer. There are reports of police locating young women for sex for the wealthy and powerful mullahs.

In cities, shelters have been set-up to provide assistance for runaways. Officials who run these shelters are often corrupt; they run prostitution rings using the girls from the shelter. For example in Karaj, the former head of a Revolutionary Tribunal and seven other senior officials were arrested in connection with a prostitution ring that used 12 to 18 year old girls from a shelter called the Center of Islamic Orientation.

Other instances of corruption abound. There was a judge in Karaj who was involved in a network that identified young girls to be sold abroad. And in Qom, the center for religious training in Iran, when a prostitution ring was broken up, some of the people arrested were from government agencies, including the Department of Justice.

The ruling fundamentalists have differing opinions on their official position on the sex trade: deny and hide it or recognize and accommodate it. In 2002, a BBC journalist was deported for taking photographs of prostitutes. Officials told her: “We are deporting you … because you have taken pictures of prostitutes. This is not a true reflection of life in our Islamic Republic. We don’t have prostitutes.” Yet, earlier the same year, officials of the Social Department of the Interior Ministry suggested legalizing prostitution as a way to manage it and control the spread of HIV. They proposed setting-up brothels, called “morality houses,” and using the traditional religious custom of temporary marriage, in which a couple can marry for a short period of time, even an hour, to facilitate prostitution. Islamic fundamentalists’ ideology and practices are adaptable when it comes to controlling and using women.

Some may think a thriving sex trade in a theocracy with clerics acting as pimps is a contradiction in a country founded and ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. In fact, this is not a contradiction. First, exploitation and repression of women are closely associated. Both exist where women, individually or collectively, are denied freedom and rights. Second, the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran are not simply conservative Muslims. Islamic fundamentalism is a political movement with a political ideology that considers women inherently inferior in intellectual and moral capacity. Fundamentalists hate women’s minds and bodies. Selling women and girls for prostitution is just the dehumanizing complement to forcing women and girls to cover their bodies and hair with the veil.

In a religious dictatorship like Iran, one cannot appeal to the rule of law for justice for women and girls. Women and girls have no guarantees of freedom and rights, and no expectation of respect or dignity from the Islamic fundamentalists. Only the end of the Iranian regime will free women and girls from all the forms of slavery they suffer.

Dr. Donna M. Hughes is a Professor and holds the Carlson Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island.

The author wishes to acknowledge the Iranian human rights and pro-democracy activists who contributed information for this article. If any readers have information on prostitution and the sex slave trade in Iran, please contact her at dhughes@uri.edu


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: arabcountries; iran; islam; islamicsex; muslimwomen; orcs; religionofpeace; rop; sex; sexcrimes; sexjihad; sexualexplotation; slavery; women
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1 posted on 01/27/2004 3:58:21 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
And yet some muslim women are as devout as any man.
2 posted on 01/27/2004 4:11:35 AM PST by monocle
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To: monocle
This is though our lens. Bush wants everyone to have the same lens - freedom and democracy, as our republic demonstrates.
3 posted on 01/27/2004 4:16:28 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: monocle
My friend told me that if there is a islamic battle and after winning that battle if muslims capture some women they are free to do whatever they want to do with them...

then they are free to do whatever they want to do with them. i.e have sex without marriage or marry them or kill them or free them or do what ever they please. Is this true. Please narrate any instances if this is true

Answer 8271 2003-04-24

Slavery was prevalent long before the advent of Nabi (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) and Nabi (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) left it to exist even after his attaining prophethood. But Nabi (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) adopted many schemes to abolish it e.g. continuously encouraging the Sahabah (Radhiallaahu Anhu) to free the slaves and also laying down many conditions for possessing one.

If an Islamic battle breaks out in which the Muslims attain booty which includes women, then the leader will distribute the booty amongst the participants. If a person receives a slave girl in his share allocated to him by the leader then he has the option of either freeing her or keeping her for his own needs, which includes having intimate relations with her without the need for Nikah [a Mohammedan marriage] (i.e. if she is a Muslim, Christian or Jew). The owner and leader both are not allowed to kill the slave girl.

In the present age it is difficult to find Shar’ee slave girls as the rules and regulations of owning slaves are not found, therefore it is not permissible to buy any man or woman nor have intimate relationships with such women without performing Nikah [a Mohammedan marriage] with her first. (Fataawaa Rahimiyyah, Vol. 1, Page 50-58)

and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best

Mufti Muhammad Ashraf
Darul Ifta – Jameah Mahmoodiya, Springs

"Ask the Imam.com"
4 posted on 01/27/2004 4:19:06 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Where did that excellent graphic come from?
5 posted on 01/27/2004 4:27:22 AM PST by zook
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To: zook
The Front Page Magazine site. LINKED above under the title.
6 posted on 01/27/2004 4:29:42 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Excellent article with carefully assembled facts. It certainly gives an entirely different view of Iran. But of course a closed society is free to give out its own view of itself, unchallenged by facts.
7 posted on 01/27/2004 4:35:31 AM PST by livius
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
BUMP
8 posted on 01/27/2004 4:36:56 AM PST by independentmind
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To: Aquinasfan
So...
Islam = Slavery

How is is not the ultimate hypocrisy to beg for 'reparations' while simultaneously bowing to a belief set that advocates slavery?

Why isnt this being broadcast from the rooftops?
Where is the OUTRAGE!?
9 posted on 01/27/2004 4:38:17 AM PST by Samurai_Jack (Pacifism by its nature invites escalating acts of war on anyone who practices it.)
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To: Samurai_Jack
Slavery of women is ignored by NOW
because they are still TOO BUSY adjusting their kneepads for the Clintons and their agents.


10 posted on 01/27/2004 4:45:21 AM PST by Diogenesis (If you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us)
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To: livius
And that is why the media is controlled.
11 posted on 01/27/2004 4:45:55 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Some may think a thriving sex trade in a theocracy with clerics acting as pimps is a contradiction in a country founded and ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. In fact, this is not a contradiction. First, exploitation and repression of women are closely associated. Both exist where women, individually or collectively, are denied freedom and rights.

The growing worldwide sex slave industry is a subject that interests me, but I think the above statement is inaccurate. That some societies permit this treatment of women is not, fundamentally a political issue. It's religious and cultural and no amount of tinkering with laws will change it.

12 posted on 01/27/2004 4:49:17 AM PST by independentmind
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To: independentmind
But there religion is politics and visa versa.
13 posted on 01/27/2004 4:52:46 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Thud
You will find this very much of interest.
14 posted on 01/27/2004 5:17:52 AM PST by Dark Wing
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Religion of Peace...

Ayatollah Khomeini issued a special "religious decree" that required that all virgin women prisoners be raped before execution to prevent them from going to heaven. They also threatened Ashraf Jalali, Farah Shirmahale, and Mashid Sheikh with rape. The routine was to rape all of the women, especially the unmarried girls, before they were executed. Ashraf was young, not more than 17-years-old. I got to know her in prison and in the torture chamber. She had attractive dark eyes, and would stare at one point. When asked what she was thinking about, she said she was thinking about freedom for the women of her country. She used to say that the more they flogged us with cables, the more she believed in the path she had chosen. She was only with us a short time; they executed her very quickly.

From: Making the Harm Visible

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/mhvact.htm

15 posted on 01/27/2004 5:24:52 AM PST by 2banana
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To: 2banana
I could shake every woman here in AMERICA that allows herself to be covered with that garbage, I still say the religion of peace was all made up by some lunatic called mohammed to make right what he was doing, he was a monster and the muslims read into that book ,.they call the koran to do the same
16 posted on 01/27/2004 6:31:40 AM PST by douglas1 (i)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
"They proposed setting-up brothels, called 'morality houses'"

You can't get any more Orwellian than that.

"Islamic fundamentalism is a political movement with a political ideology"

The sooner the Western nations realize this, face this unpleasant face, and accept it and begin treating it as a political movement with a political ideology and agenda, the better. Its overt goal is the establishment of a worldwide Islamic theocracy with the Koran as the constitution, dhimmitude for all non-Muslims, and the shariah as international law. The people of the West have duped themselves into mistaking a political movement for a religion and giving it free-reign under the misconception that it should be protected under a misguided and paralysing commitment to "freedom of religion".

17 posted on 01/27/2004 6:44:54 AM PST by Savage Beast (Whom will the terrorists vote for? Not George Bush--that's for sure! ~Happy2BMe)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Good find, CW. Corruption to the core.
18 posted on 01/27/2004 7:02:40 AM PST by Zack Nguyen
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To: Samurai_Jack
Where is the OUTRAGE!?

The people are ignorant. The media is ignorant. So... it's up to us to spread the word. Ping your friends to "Ask the Imam." Hopefully it'll spread around the web.

19 posted on 01/27/2004 7:33:45 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Savage Beast
giving it free-reign under the misconception that it should be protected under a misguided and paralysing commitment to "freedom of religion".

Every major religion that I know of can be reconciled with the First Amendment, except one...

20 posted on 01/27/2004 7:37:40 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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