Syria - Sex Trafficking Central

(Damascus, Syria) Today, in a United Nations humanitarian news article, Syria is being highlighted as a teeming pit of human/sex traffickers. Verifiable data are not provided, however, there are estimates and anecdotes. Here's an example:

In 2003 Hiba (not her real name), then aged 11, was forced to marry her cousin. The following day she was driven from Baghdad to the border with Syria and sold to traffickers. In Damascus she was forced to dance in night clubs or private homes. Four years later, pregnant and abandoned by her handlers, she was imprisoned by the Syrian authorities on charges of prostitution.

When the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) found her, Hiba was on the point of being deported to Iraq. Instead, the UNHCR - to whom Hiba told her story - arranged for the teenager to be resettled in Canada earlier this month, where she recently gave birth to a baby boy named Zaman (Arabic: time).

"He's named after the time I never had," she said.

Hiba's case is far from unique. Though there are no reliable figures, agencies and activists say hundreds of people from different parts of the world are trafficked to Syria each year for prostitution, domestic work, and even for the sale of body parts. The influx to Syria of over 1.5 million Iraqi refugees since 2003 has exacerbated the problem.

Apparently, the purpose of the article is to not only describe the situation in Syria but to also announce that the government in Damascus is going through the motions of doing something about it.

Current law doesn't adequately address the seriousness of sex tafficking resulting in women being prosecuted more harshly than the men who force them into it. A draft law has been prepared and submitted to the prime minister's office, blah, blah, blah. I'm obviously skeptical ... at least in the short run. I don't see how a centuries-old habit of treating woman as property is going to change because of some piece of paper in Damascus.

Nonetheless, it's a step in the right direction.