Photo: Rudaw. It is also common to see these cars stop and for groups of two or more girls to crane their necks through open windows, to climb into the backseat, and to disappear into the night. We spotted one year-old punter driving a Toyota Prado. He identified himself as Sako. Sako took out his phone while we talked and called a female friend who was willing to spend the night with him in exchange for money.
According to Sako she is from Shiraz, but studying in Sanandaj. The trade is surprisingly widespread considering prostitution is illegal in deeply conservative Iran, where the role and morality of women is rigidly codified. A short distance down the road we find a man, his black hair flecked with white. Identifying himself as Hadi, the year-old tells us he separated from his wife 15 years ago.
The price has risen as a result of sex tourism, he says, as men from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq cross the border to buy sex. But over the past two years, buyers from Southern Kurdistan [Iraqi Kurdistan Region] cities have been spending more than two million tomans on a beautiful girl for one night.
It has made them prefer them over us. After obtaining phone numbers, I called several sex workers to ask about their business. Although I assured them I would protect the identity and would not disclose their location, they refused to go on the record with their stories. I later approached a man working at the Sanandaj public food market, identified as Payman, and persuaded him to take me to a brothel. This time I would not identify myself as a journalist.
Payman, 28, took me to a colourfully painted bordello in the Baharan neighborhood in Sanandaj. We knocked and a woman named Khala answered. She is one of the madams of the establishment. As we entered an adjoining room, I saw a half-naked woman in her 30s. She rose to shake our hands while another older woman named Alham, prepared tea.
