Original version

BBC World Service East Asia

Assignment

Factual

Investigations and journeys into the heart of global events from BBC correspondents.

No Master Brand

The BBC's international radio station (B2B)

BBC World Service Core

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

Assignment: Undercover with the clerics: Iraq’s secret sex trade

Documentaries

News

Undercover with the clerics: Iraq’s secret sex trade

03/10/2019 GMT

BBC World Service - Assignment, Undercover with the clerics: Iraq’s secret sex trade

The clerics facilitating so-called ‘pleasure marriages’ in return for payment

The clerics facilitating so-called ‘pleasure marriages’ in return for payment. The personal cost for many women is enormous.

Muslim men and women are forbidden to sleep together outside marriage, but in Iraq, it’s possible for men to find a way round this obstacle to sexual freedom through a deeply controversial custom. So-called 'pleasure marriages' allow time-limited wedlock, sometimes for as little as half an hour, and with no commitment whatsoever. The practice is illegal, though some Shi’a clerics nevertheless claim it is permitted under Sharia, and offer to oversee pleasure marriages in return for payment. 

As Nawal al-Maghafi of BBC Arabic discovers in this disturbing story, the clerics’ lucrative business comes at enormous personal cost to many women, who are often tricked and coerced into marrying, only to be dumped shortly afterwards. Worse, their life-chances and even their lives are put at risk, because virginity is a prerequisite for proper marriage. Using undercover reporting and secret recording, the programme also finds clerics willing to supply women for sex, and even to officiate for men who want to have sex with children.  

Photo: Nawal Al Maghafi, BBC Arabic Credit: BBC

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Assignment

Undercover with the clerics: Iraq’s secret sex trade

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service East Asia

About BBC World Service