When 19-year-old Fatima returned to her home in northern Afghanistan after years as a refugee in Iran, she struggled desperately to earn a living.She briefly found work with an NGO, before being let go, and then spent two months learning how to weave carpets, before the factory shut down and she was again out on the streets of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Determined to support her mother, two sisters and young brother, she turned to a profession that has long been practised the world over but remains deeply suppressed in conservative Afghanistan -- prostitution.
"I had no other way but prostitution," says the pretty teenager, dressed in tight blue jeans with a black veil pulled loosely over her head.
Sometimes charging $50 a time, her work is illegal and would bring shame on her family if discovered, but it provides a lifeline she otherwise could not have imagined.
And there is anecdotal evidence, supported by doctors concerned about the potential for the spread of HIV and AIDS, that more and more young women across northern regions of Afghanistan are turning to sex work to escape grinding poverty.
Easy access
For clients, paying for sex gives them easy access to women that they otherwise would not be able to meet or could only have contact with if they were married -- a costly exercise in itself.
"I have sex at least once a week with one of these prostitutes," said Zilgy, a 25-year-old visiting a brothel in Mazar-i-Sharif. "I am their regular customer now. I have their telephone numbers and invite them to many places."
Ahmad Jamshid, aged 27, says he has sex with prostitutes because he cannot afford a wife.
"I am a shopkeeper. If I want to marry a girl, I must have at least $20,000 to marry her. Having sex with a prostitute is the only way that can I meet my expectations," he said.
Original Link :http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/
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