Iraq is a source and destination country for women and children subjected to sex trafficking, and men, women, and children subjected to forced labor. An international organization alleged that police officers and other members of the security forces kidnapped women and girls and forced them into prostitution in Kirkuk and Salah ad-Din Provinces.
An NGO reported in previous years that sex traffickers rape women and girls on film and blackmail them into prostitution or recruit them in prisons by posting bail and then forcing them into prostitution through debt bondage. Some women and children are pressured into prostitution by family members to escape desperate economic circumstances.
NGOs report that women are forced into prostitution in private residences, brothels, restaurants, and places of entertainment.
Some women and girls are sold into "temporary marriages" within Iraq β primarily for the purpose of sexual exploitation, prostitution, or domestic servitude β by which the family of the victim receives money in the form of a dowry in exchange for permission for the woman or girl to be married for a limited period of time.
Women who flee such marriages or whose husbands divorce them are often vulnerable to further forced labor or sexual servitude.
