After disappearing for the past six years, sin and vice are now running rife in the streets of the Iraqi capital. “Sin is part of Baghdadis’ lives again,” Fadilla Muhammed, member of a group campaigning for family traditions and morals, was reported as saying. Bars, pubs and liquor stores, once shut down, are back to business and proliferating. Prostitution homes have reopened, and in many of them, prostitutes troll for clients. In downtown Baghdad, cinemas infamous for showing sex-themed movies while spectators engage in actual sexual relations in their chairs or in the bathrooms are re-opening. Although less common, women are found inside such movie theatres, offering themselves or their own daughters for whatever you guess. “Today, after the invasion and many attempts to shut down such places, they came back with strength,” notes Muhammed. According to Mustafa al-Ghadhun, a senior Health Ministry official, there is an increase in the alcohol consumption and drugs in Iraq. “There is also a very large consumption of medicines containing codeine and valium derivatives,” he said, adding, “We are concerned about the quantity consumed, as many cases of alcohol addiction have been reported.” Baghdad districts such as Sadr, Alawi, Dora, Bab al-Muadhem and Gazellia have reportedly become hotbeds for drug dealing. Drug dealers are also especially active in the areas where policing is less present and where militias hold sway. For those who indulge in all the once-illicit practices, this is what they have wanted the Americans to bring to Iraq.
ALCOHOL, PROSTITUTION RIFE IN POST-INVASION IRAQ
After disappearing for the past six years, sin and vice are now running rife in the streets of the Iraqi capital. “Sin is part of Baghdadis’ lives again,” Fadilla Muhammed, member of a group campaigning for family traditions and morals, was reported as saying.
