Human trafficking in Iraq: Markets for the sale of children and organs

Iraq has recently witnessed an outbreak of human and organ trafficking crimes, to the point of smuggling them abroad by organized international networks and gangs.

The Iraqi governorates have repeatedly recorded many crimes of human trafficking, sometimes carried out by parents who sold their children, in addition to the increasing presence of gangs active in these crimes.

From time to time, the official authorities announce the liberation of abductees from the human trafficking gangs or the arrest of gang members.

These crimes aroused concern among observers, who warned of their danger to society, especially as they became a phenomenon, calling for the urgent need to address such crimes.

Human trafficking becomes a phenomenon

In the latest crimes, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on August 14 the arrest of a father and son for selling his daughter's kidney for 8 million Iraqi dinars, or about $5,400.

In May, the Directorate of Anti-Human Trafficking in Iraq managed to thwart a network of human trafficking inside a massage center in central Baghdad, consisting of 18 men and women.

Another official statement at the beginning of February confirmed the arrest of someone involved in human trafficking by taking money from Iraqis amounting to $9,000 to smuggle them to European countries illegally.

A man and a woman involved in human trafficking were also arrested, although no further details were given.

At the end of January, the Ministry of Interior announced the liberation of two foreign girls from a house taken as headquarters by a gang specialized in human trafficking, after the girls managed to contact the police. The house in Baghdad was stormed and they were liberated; however, work is still underway to arrest the members of the network involved.

On October 28, 2021, a security force arrested a man who tried to sell his daughter in the capital. According to a statement issued by the Directorate of Anti-Human Trafficking, “information was available about the presence of a person who was trying to sell his daughter by performing a caesarean section to his wife and then selling the child, but he was arrested.”

The crime occurred just one day after the arrest of a woman who trafficked children in Diyala governorate, adjacent to Baghdad.

In February, the Iraqi Al-Sabah newspaper quoted the director of Al Maseer NGO concerned with the human rights file in Iraq, Iman Al-Silawi, as saying that the country recorded 300 cases of human trafficking during 2021.

“All ages are subjected to trafficking, whether they are children, women or youth,” Al-Silawi confirmed.

She pointed to an increase in the involvement of women in this type of crime, particularly the trafficking of girls and human organs.

Economic conditions the weak point

Observers attribute the expansion of human trafficking in Iraq to poverty, unemployment, low salaries, weak security, and the strength of armed groups, among others. They also accuse some elements of these groups of supporting and financially benefiting from criminal networks.

The director of the Anti-Human Trafficking Investigation in Baghdad, Brigadier Wissam Al-Zubaidi, revealed in statements published by the Iraqi News Agency that the selling price of one kidney reaches 48 million Iraqi dinars, equivalent to about $33,000.

The Iraqi security official said, “Human trafficking is focused on the sale of kidneys.”

“We seized the sale of testicles between Iraq and Ukraine,” he added.

He pointed out that the value of “the sale of the testicle outside Iraq amounts to $80,000.”

Al-Zubaidi explained that arrests of human trafficking gangs have recently increased in Iraq, adding that the security forces will work to combat human trafficking beyond the Iraqi border.

Regarding the spread of human trafficking, the director of the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights, Mustafa Saadoun, said in a press statement in June that “there are large gangs that traffic in humans in Iraq, taking advantage of poor displaced families.”

“The kidnapped children are employed by begging or forced to work for low wages. Girls are forced to work in prostitution and nightclubs,” he added.

“Human trafficking is a major crime that comes in many forms, including organ trafficking. Some bodies were found between the Iraqi and Turkish borders, and many organs were removed from them,” Saadoun continued.

For his part, a member of the Iraqi Bar Association, Muhammad Al-Qaisi, told Jusoor Post that in the majority of human trafficking crimes, victims are caught through social media, whether through extortion, luring, or exploitation of financial need and temptation with a different reality or a better future.

A former member of the Iraqi Human Rights Commission, Ali Al-Bayati, confirmed the link between poor economic conditions, poverty and unemployment with an increase in human trafficking cases.

“There is a rise in the number of people who have offered parts of their organs for sale to secure the necessary needs and the usual family requirements,” Al-Bayati told Jusoor Post.

“The extortion, violence and clandestine trade in workers by legal and illegal employment offices continue,” he added.

“Social networking sites have a negative role for some by tempting and luring underage girls into marriage by young men, which caused them to be exposed to serious risks,” Al-Bayati explained.

He added that “55 women have fallen victim to electronic blackmail during the past year, after they were bargained for money or agreed to be sexually exploited to avoid defamation by publishing their personal photos on social media.”

The human rights activist explained that the amounts of extortion amount to 15 million Iraqi dinars, or about $10,000, and that most of the blackmailers are men, with the exception of two cases, who were blackmailed by other women.

Kidnappings have also increased significantly, according to Al-Bayati. “The number of kidnapped people during the past year reached 125. Most of the kidnappings took place for the purpose of obtaining money or sexual assault, and the victims were women, youth and children,” he said.

The role of militias and the weakness of the law

Iraq classifies the crimes of selling organs, sexual exploitation, begging, and coercion to work as human trafficking crimes.

Although there is a law to combat human trafficking in Iraq that includes many penalties, up to life imprisonment and even death, legal experts believe that the law is weak in text and implementation.

Al-Bayati criticized the Iraqi judiciary's handling of these crimes.

He explained that the judiciary still avoids, in some of its rulings, resorting to the Anti-Human Trafficking Law No. 28 of 2012, and instead it rules in accordance with the Iraqi Penal Code 111 of 1969, especially with regard to the sexual exploitation of victims. He also blamed the lack of a unified definition of the concept of human trafficking among government institutions.

Saadoun believes that “the law in Iraq is weak and not commensurate with the horrific crimes that are taking place.”

He explained that “this law requires a very special intelligence effort because it is difficult to reach people who traffic in human beings, especially with the intervention of state militias, which have a major role in this phenomenon.”

Al-Qaisi called for the police to double the procedures for prosecuting human trafficking networks due to their expansion and the increase in their number.

“Some of them have turned into big mafias and may have financial and political covers that enable them to move easily inside and outside Iraq's borders, similar to drug-trafficking gangs,” he said.