Prostitution in Iraq is illegal. Punishment can be severe, including life imprisonment. Many women fleeing the war in Iraq have been forced into prostitution. Some sources claim up to 50 thousand Iraqi refugee women in Syria , many of them widows or orphans, have been forced into prostitution. The Iraqi Kurdistan region has reportedly received "women and children trafficked from the rest of Iraq for prostitution ". Soran Mama Hama , a young reporter for Livin Magazine wrote an article entitled "Prostitutes invade Kirkuk", which was published on June 15, Hama was shot and died in front of his home in Kirkuk.
In some cases, Iraqi teenage boys and young men are the prostitutes. In these cases the prostitutes are typically motivated by poverty and are mostly heterosexual. Iraq is a source and destination country for women and children subjected to sex trafficking. Refugees and IDPs face heightened risk of trafficking due to their economic and social vulnerability and lack of security and protections. NGOs report trafficking networks in the IKR target refugees and IDPs, operating with assistance from local officials, including judges, officials from the Asayish forces, and border agents.
In , members of the IKR Parliament and NGOs reported some personnel from the Asayish forces facilitated the sex trafficking of women and girls in Syrian refugee camps in the IKR, primarily in Domiz refugee camp, as well as sex trafficking of girls outside of the camps. In , NGOs reported Asayish guards not only allowed men to enter a camp to solicit commercial sex with refugee girls, but the guards also solicited sex from the refugee girls, including granting them permission to leave the camp in exchange for sex.
Reports from indicated IDPs and some Syrian refugee women were forced into prostitution by a trafficking network in hotels and brothels in Baghdad , Basrah , and other cities in southern Iraq after agents of the network promised to resettle them from the IKR. Reports continue to suggest some Iraqi law enforcement officials have allegedly frequented brothels known for sex trafficking or accepted bribes to allow sex trafficking.
There were anecdotal reports, including from a June local television station, of child sex trafficking of girls primarily from Iran and Syria, as well as some from the IKR, in Sulaymaniyah. NGOs also report cases in which girls who have run away from their families out of fear of honor killings are exploited in commercial sex by criminal networks.
