Obscene II

BY GAREN YEGPARIAN

Evidently, it wasn’t enough that we learned about the trafficking of women from Armenia for use as prostitutes in the Persian Gulf states from the exposé done by Ara Manoogian some seven years ago. No doubt, this odious practice continues.

Nor, apparently, was it enough to be treated to the profoundly rankling reality of women from Armenia entering the sex trade in Turkey. This, too, probably continues unabated, though I haven’t heard much about it recently. But, guess what, a school in Constantinople is being (re)built to serve the numerous Armenian children who have been added to our community’s ranks in that city. Guess where they arrived from.

Of course it was clearly not enough to have to digest the sobering reality that Armenians fire-bombed a bar frequented by other Armenians whose sexual orientation the attackers deemed inappropriate.

Now we get to relish the selling of young Armenian women as brides to Persians or Turks in Iran. While this may have been OK long ago, it’s hardly so today. How can selling a person be acceptable? I’d like to think this is not true, but unfortunately, it seems all too plausible!

The story I heard was of someone going back to visit his home town in northern Iran and being invited by old friends to visit and reminisce. Over the meal, the hosts proudly told this fellow that they had gotten brides from Armenia, not just one, but TWO. They also mentioned paying a pretty penny for them. The practice of paying a bride price is evidently more common in polygamous societies where, understandably, a relative scarcity of women relative to men is created.

Brain drain, expatriation for work (today’s version of the 19th century’s “bantoukhd”), and now a bride drain; what’s next, selling babies? Or maybe that’s already happening and I don’t know about it.

Just STOP! Armenia’s authorities have to start acting like a government and not a band of marauding, looting, ravaging nomads! The ongoing immiseration of the bulk of the Republic of Armenia’s population quite naturally leads to all these reprehensible, sad, and desperate actions. Let’s browbeat this government into acting responsibly or contribute to a fundamental change in leadership come the presidential elections this winter.