This is a blog post by Reem George, whom I recently contacted about this site. This has been featured in Arabisto:

This is my first blog, so I decided to write about a subject I am passionate about, and one I spent months researching and even dreaming about at some point.

Why sex trafficking? Is it an act of desperation by those who sell women and girls around the globe? How does the mind come to a point where it accepts to carryout a crime so heinous, so despicable, and so unjustifiable?

In the mind of a criminal, who is looking to make some money, human trafficking and especially sex trafficking is one that outweighs all the profits made from drug trafficking per say. This is simply because women who are trafficked can be “recycled” over and again and can be bought and sold by one criminal to another.

So what does human trafficking have to do with the Middle East? The problem has always existed in the area, but in deeply religious societies, the problem never gets the attention that it deserves. Human trafficking is caused by political and economic upheavals and instability in the country of origin, widespread poverty, chronic unemployment, lack of economic opportunities, marginalization of women and girls, lack of education, rapid modernization leading to the loss of cultural values, development of materialistic values, break of family ties, and social and cultural practices that devalue women and girls.

Through transnational organized networks, criminals take advantage of declining conditions and prey on poor women, who are often displaced victims of war and lure them by work opportunities abroad. Women are generally bought, sold or auctioned to brothels and private buyers as sexual slaves. The crime of sex trafficking is spreading in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and Yemen.

In Tehran alone, there are over 87,000 prostitutes on the streets, most of them forced into the business, with some being as young as nine years of age. Following the invasion and occupation in Iraq, hundreds of Iraqi women as well as Iraqi boys were kidnapped and sold into slavery in Syria and Yemen. In the United Arab Emirates, women are being trafficked from countries in Eastern Europe and Russia, and as far as China, India, and Indonesia.

The pattern of sexual slavery has not changed in the Middle East today, but rather has increased in modern times, especially in the more industrialized nations of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. The business employs modern technology and takes advantage of porous borders and corrupt leadership. This increase resulted as the appeal for the old world desires was coupled with the lures of business and profit-making opportunities in the Middle East. The temptations of “business and pleasure” have attracted tourists, businessmen, criminal gangs and sexual predators alike from around the world.

This is a global phenomenon that is occurring at our doorstep, in every country, in every city, and it is possibly happening in your street at this moment. I live in San Diego, close to the busiest border in the world. I am not worried about “terrorists” crossing these borders. I am worried about girls as young as nine, being kidnapped and brought here against their will and made to lose their dignity and childhood, all for money and power.

In the Middle East, where civil wars are raging on in Iraq and the Sudan, and intense fighting in Palestine is prolonged by the lack of cooperation, the issue of sex trafficking becomes even more difficult to control. But, who is listening? It is terrorism that people are more worried about, this war between powerful men, and not human trafficking. Trafficking is a war between men and vulnerable human beings, most of whom are women. They are our mothers and daughters, sisters and nieces. Are you listening?

An excellent piece. It makes people aware of an issue that should be important to us all, but isn’t. Unfortunately, the majority of us are not listening, simply because there aren’t enough people talking and writing about it.