They Shoot Hookers Don't They?

A year and a day after the infamous "Swedish model" killed Petite Jasmine, on Saturday, 12 July 2014, Iraqi abolitionists gunned down 29 sex workers, in an apartment building in Baghdad.

That is exactly what happened, in simple words.

An abolitionist is an abolitionist, and an extremist is an extremist, whether Radfem or Muslim. It is a little bit moot whether you kill someone with a bullet or by making their lives impossible while cranking up the stigmas with hate speech (the preferred method in Europe and America).

You are still just as dead, and in my honest opinion the bullet is quicker and cleaner.

This is not hyperbole either. On 8 July, the French Senate voted to remove the clauses penalising sex buyers from proposed legislation, leaving behind only decriminalisation and provision of exit resources. Their argument was that, properly examined, it is clear that "Nordic Model" type legislation does not work in terms of reducing the sex industry, has a significant negative impact on sex workers and places their safety at significant risk – just common sense really.

The remaining argument to be made against that by abolitionists involves attacking sex workers head on, much as beauty queens were once attacked, as complicit enemies of gender equality. A few days ago, that seemed a good thing – that would show the true viciousness and callous indifference of the abolitionist movement for what it is. Today I am not so sure.

"The apartment complex is known for prostitution and in the past prostitutes have been the targets of extrajudicial killings there by Muslim extremists. It was not clear if that was what happened this time. However, if the targets were prostitutes, it is unlikely that would cause the kind of backlash that a large-scale sectarian killing would. “

– Alyssa J Rubin New York Times 12 July 2014

People know very little about Iraq. It has often been presented in the media as a primitive country not unlike the Yemen. In the real world Iraq, land of the Tigris and Euphrates, was the cradle of civilisation, and it's indigenous people and culture are more closely related to the Jews than the Bedouins, while being unique and very different to both.

Iraq was a sophisticated country before the Ottoman Empire, let alone before the first Gulf war. In truth Iraq was a pretty sophisticated country before Abraham. Sadly, like any old and sophisticated culture, Iraq tends to fast breed political intrigue, much of it toxic, hence the apparently endless trouble.

Regardless, you can forget any image of Iraqi sex workers as illiterate peasant girls. It doesn't work that way in Iraq.

Salon.com Joshua E. S. Phillips 25 June 2005 - Unveiling Iraq’s teenage prostitutes
Cnn.com Arwa Damon August 16 2007 - Iraqi women: Prostituting ourselves to feed our children
Al Monitor July 9 2009 - Iraq's Prostitutes Inhabit a Dark, Dangerous World
Wikipedia: Prostitution in Iraq
Blip.TV (video) - Alive in Baghdad Iraqi Refugees Forced Into Prostitution
CNN (video) November 2009 - Prostitution in Iraq

Some of it is exaggerated, most of it is spun to agenda, except for a noticeable absence of anyone with the raw cheek to suggest that "ending the demand" would be in any way helpful. (Listen to their stories: where one earth would any 'Nordic Model' fit in constructively?)

What I want you to take in is the element of "same old...same old" particularly in the videos. The women who were gunned down by people who wanted to abolish them are just like any other sex workers in the media: they are just like you, and they are just like me.

They were my sisters and they were yours, just as much as Jasmine, and they are just as violently dead. I cannot help wondering about the coincidence. The first anniversary of Jasmine's death fell on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, and I am not sure how that works. It may have the same weight as the Jewish Sabbath with some Muslims.

If ever there were a clearer message that *STIGMA KILLS* I have not seen it.

...and the Western Press brushes it under the carpet. So far the UK and Irish press are mostly ignoring it, apart from a brief piece in the Telegraph. The Irish Times makes reference to the death of 29 women in an apartment block but no mention that they were sex workers, despite the fact that "punished for prostitution" was written on the door of the building like an edict.

Of course there is a punchline that changes everything. I have done a lot of research no journalist seems to have bothered with today.

Several European services regularly book tours for Escorts in Iraq; there is also some evidence of British sex workers operating in Iraq.

Does it finally matter now?