Prostitution in Iraq is illegal. The Iraqi penal code outlaws prostitution, with the pimp, the prostitute and the client all being liable for criminal penalties.
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Iraq war
Many women fleeing the war in Iraq have been forced into prostitution. Some sources claim up to 50 thousand Iraqi refugee women in Syria, many of them widows or orphans, have been forced into prostitution. Sources claim the women are exploited by Gulf Arabs. After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, private contracting companies brought in prostitutes from other parts of the world to Iraq. [No text in source]
Iraqi Kurdistan
The Iraqi Kurdistan region has reportedly received "women and children trafficked from the rest of Iraq for prostitution". Criminal gangs have prostituted girls from outside of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region in the provinces of Erbil, Dahuk, and Sulaymaniyah. NGOs have alleged that some personnel from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Asayish internal security forces have facilitated prostitution in Syrian refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraqi women were sold into “temporary marriages” and Syrian girls from refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan were forced into early or “temporary marriages”, and it was alleged that KRG authorities ignored such cases.
Other types of prostitution
In some cases, Iraqi teenage boys and young men are the prostitutes. In these cases the prostitutes are typically motivated by poverty and are mostly heterosexual.