They are dessed in tight jeans, low-cut tops and knee-high boots, but the girls'
make-up can't disguise the fact that most are in their mid-teens. It's a
strange sight in a conservative Muslim country, but this is the sex business,
and it's booming as a result of the war in Iraq.
Backstage, the manager sits in his leather chair, doing business. A Saudi
client is quoted $500 for one of the girls. Eventually he beats it down to
$300. Next door, in a dimly lit room, the next shift of girls arrives, taking
off the black all-covering abayasthey wear outside and putting on lipstick and
mascara.
To judge from the cars parked outside, the clients come from all over the Gulf
region - many are young Saudi men escaping from an even more conservative moral
climate. But the Syrian friend who has brought me here tells me that 95 per
cent of the girls are Iraqi.
Most are unwilling to talk, but Zahra, an attractive girl with a bare midriff
and tattoos, tells me she's 16. She has been working in this club since fleeing
to Syria from Baghdad after the war. She doesn't like it, she says, "but what
can we do? I hope things get better in Iraq, because I miss it. I want to go
back, but I have to look after my sister". Zahra points to a thin, pubescent
girl with long black hair, who seems to be dancing quite happily. Aged 13,
Nadia started in the club two months ago.
As the girls dance suggestively, allowing their breasts to brush against each
other, one winks at a customer. But these girls are not just providing the
floor show - they have paid to be here, and they need to pick up a client, or
they'll lose money. If successful, they'll earn about $60, equivalent to a
month's wages in a factory.
There are more than a million Iraqi refugees in Syria, many are women whose
husbands or fathers have been killed. Banned from working legally, they have
few options outside the sex trade. No one knows how many end up as prostitutes,
but Hana Ibrahim, founder of the Iraqi women's group Women's Will, puts the
figure at 50,000.
I met Fatima in a block of flats operating informally as a brothel in Saida
Zainab, a run-down area with a large Iraqi population. Millions of Shias go
there every year, because of the shrine of the prophet Mohamed's granddaughter.
"I came to Syria after my husband was killed, leaving me with two children,"
Fatima tells me. "My aunt asked me to join her here, and my brothers pressured
me to go." She didn't realise the work her aunt did, and she would be forced to
take up, until she arrived.
Fatima is in her mid-20s, but campaigners say the number of Iraqi children
working as prostitutes is high. Bassam al-Kadi of Syrian Women Observatory
says: "Some have been sexually abused in Iraq, but others are being prostituted
by fathers and uncles who bring them here under the pretext of protecting them.
They are virgins, and they are brought here like an investment and exploited in
a very ugly way."
