She is currently a New America Fellow, writing a book about the Syrian uprising. The interview below includes two parts that you can click on seperately. Please find a transcript of the interview below the player. So, earlier this year Rania Abuzaid went back to Baghdad to look into the worsening situation in Iraq by focusing on women who have become victims of sexual violence. I spoke with Rania Abuzaid about her New Yorker piece, and why she decided to take on such a challenging reporting project.
Rania Abouzeid [RA]: There is so much news about what is happening in Iraq but I wanted to look at how the massive changes in the country were affecting some of its most vulnerable citizens. I did not want to look at it from the perspective of the political power play nor the perspective of the guys with the guns.
I actually went with the intention of looking at the displaced women, as well. I wrote a separate story for the New Yorker about that, and I sort of ended up focusing on sex crimes, because sadly when it comes to the vulnerability of women, that is often exploited in a sexually violent manner. MR : Rania, who is behind prostitution and the trafficking of women in Baghdad?
RA : It is quite a tangled web: most of the pimps are actually women, but beyond those women is a network of men. Some of the men are in militias, and they support or protect if you might be the pimp.
Other men are in militias that would fight against it and actually kill and shoot pimps, and you have corrupt policemen as well, as well as corrupt politicians and other officials. What a tangled and messy web! MR : But you were in Iraq the summer of I remember when twenty-nine women were slaughtered. They were prostitutes or believed to be prostitutes. That news got a brief attention in the media here.
