Iran and corruption and sex and prostitution

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1515313,00.html

Martin Woollacott, in the Guardian 27 June 2005:

Ahmadinejad won. "His diatribes against corruption and his pledge that oil wealth would be used to improve the lives of ordinary people had an impact. Yet this is precisely the field in which he cannot deliver.

"The Islamic republic is both a corrupt regime and one where connections count for everything. All but an honourable handful of the clerico-political class have enriched themselves, some illegally and some by simply taking advantage of their positions.

"Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's main opponent in the election, is one of the most prominent examples, and he suffered for it in the campaign. But among the men who helped get Ahmadinejad in are many who have profited as much or almost as much. Is Mr Clean going to go after them?"

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/iran_sex_slave_trade

Donna M. Hughes, Professor & Carlson Endowed ChairWomen’s Studies ProgramUniversity of Rhode Island, has written about Islamic Fundamentalism and the Sex Slave Trade in Iran.

According to Hughes, the number of women and girls in prostitution in Tehran is estimated to be: 84,000

Some are are on the streets, others are in the 250 brothels that reportedly are found in the city.

According to Hughes: thousands of Iranian women and girls have been sold into sexual slavery abroad.

Hughes reports that Government officials are involved in buying, selling, and sexually abusing women and girls.

There are reports of some girls as young as 8 and 10 being to sent to Arab countries.

"In one case, a 16-year-old girl was smuggled to Turkey, and then sold to a 58-year-old European national for $20,000."

In Tehran there are an estimated 25,000 street children, most of them girls. Pimps prey upon street children.

According to Hughes: "Women report that in order to have a judge approve a divorce they have to have sex with him. Women who are arrested for prostitution say they must have sex with the arresting officer. There are reports of police locating young women for sex for the wealthy and powerful mullahs."

In Karaj, the former head of a Revolutionary Tribunal and seven other senior officials were reportedly arrested in connection with a prostitution ring that used 12 to 18 year old girls from a shelter called the Center of Islamic Orientation.

~