This is the sex industry, Syrian-style We were told that the girls here are almost all Iraqi There is talk of 50, Iraqi prostitutes here in Syria, but the market was already there So why Iraqis? The country is under occupation, with rape, chaos, violence, conflict, forced migration, poverty and death - anything can come out of such a situation. There are more than a million Iraqi refugees in Syria, but they are not allowed to work here.
A high proportion of them are women whose husbands and fathers have been killed. For women like Fatima, prostitution is one of few avenues left open. I came to Syria after my husband was killed, leaving me with two children. My aunt asked me to join her here to work in a textile factory, and my brothers pressurised me to go. I was surprised to find the type of work my aunt was doing was not what she said - I tried to leave and find other work, but I couldn't even get a cleaning job, so I had to go back to her.
According to campaigners, Fatima's experience is just one of many routes into prostitution for Iraqi women and girls. They are virgins, and they are brought here like an investment and exploited in a very ugly way In this club on the outskirts of Damascus, their heavy make-up can't disguise the fact that many of the girls dancing are under age.
We were told that most are Iraqis under 16, and some as young as The customers here are mainly young - fashionably - dressed men from the Gulf region. Zahra says she hopes to go back to Iraq one day, but at the moment she has to look after her sister.
Samer, an Iraqi musician who performs in the clubs, gained the trust of some of the Iraqi girls, and heard their stories:. One girl, a Sunni, told me she came here with her mother and brothers to get away from the militias and the violence in Baghdad Then they stopped, and her brother wasn't working, so there was no other source of income. But the clubs are only the tip of the iceberg.
