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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Four foreign workers have died of sexual assault and many others have been subject to human trafficking over the past few years in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq, according to a local human rights organization.
"In the past two years, four workers who had come in to the Kurdistan Region for work have died of sexual assault, causing a legal issue for the region as their countries of origin might start to look for the fate of their nationals," Ziya Bitros, head of the Kurdistan Region Human Rights Board, told Rudaw. The workers first came to the Kurdistan Region, but died in Baghdad, where they were brought, according to him.
The number of foreign workers in the Kurdistan Region reached 60,000 by the end of 2017. This fell to 40,000 last year, according to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
The bulk of foreign workers working in the Kurdistan Region come from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan and Nepal. An estimated 100 companies bring foreign workers into the Kurdistan Region, according to the ministry.
There are several types of trafficking in the Kurdistan Region, including prostitution, forced labor and organ sales.
Mohammed Hazhar Mahmood, the head of the Advocate Organization for the Rights of Foreign Laborers in the Kurdistan Region, said as many as 50 foreigner workers have been trafficked in Kurdistan from 2014 to present.
"A number of human traffickers in the Kurdistan Region have made contacts with other traffickers out there in Asia and other parts of Iraq,” he told Rudaw. “The Kurdish traffickers deceive workers work by getting them a temporary visa, instead of the two-year-long work visa.”
This traps the exploited workers in the country, according to Mahmood.
“Hence, when the workers get to the Kurdistan Region, they face debts and therefore cannot return to their countries,” he said. "(This) forces them to agree to move to other provinces of Iraq where they get trafficked."
Mahmood said that in some cases the workers are sold for seven to eight thousand dollars.
The Advocate Organization for the Rights of Foreign Laborers claims to have saved nine women by the end of July 2018 who were being trafficked from Erbil to Baghdad by stopping them in Kifri, near Kirkuk. They then arranged for them to fly home, according to Mahmood.
In Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, laws protecting sexual assault victims remain unenforced making victims refrain from filing lawsuit against rapists and those harassing them.
Foreign workers come to the Kurdistan Region as investment has begun to grow again due to improved political and security relations with Baghdad post-ISIS.
However, foreign workers face xenophobic hostility, as Kurdish workers cite the presence of foreign workers as a reason behind a perceived lack of job opportunities. Local workers often feel left at the wayside when local companies recruit foreign workers instead of them, but foreign workers are often employed for job roles that are otherwise difficult to fill.
The unemployment rate in the Kurdistan Region was 6.5 percent prior to the war with the Islamic State (ISIS). The rate rose to 13.5 percent in 2015, but declined to 10.2 percent at the end of 2017. The figure currently stands at 10.7 percent, according to figures from Kurdistan Region Statistics Office (KRSO).
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