Growing depravity | Brothels and drug trafficking prevail in regime-held areas
SOHR activists have documented alarming prevalence of brothels in most of the areas controlled by the Syrian regime, particularly Damascus and areas where members of Iranian-backed militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah are deployed, in light of growing depravity and immorality.
In this context, local sources have told SOHR that a woman and her friend in Berzeh neighbourhood, Damascus, has rented a house, turning it into a brothel. According to the sources, the two women used to host young men and girls in this house to sleep with each others, where such practices lasted for months in full view of the security forces, until the Vice Squad detected the brothel after it had received a complaint.
On December 20, 2020, the police arrested a man and a woman in the south of Damascus, as they ran a large prostitution ring in a house they had rented in a remote neighbourhood in the south of Damascus. The man had brought a girl and claimed that they were recently married, then they started to allure young men to sleep with the girl and buy drugs in this house.
In al-Tel area in Rif Dimashq, the police also arrested, in November 2020, a woman running a prostitution ring with ten other girls working in it, after one of these girls had snitched on the woman and the other girls.
While in September, two girls in “obscene outfits” and two young men escorting them were arrested in Latakia city, as the two girls had seduced young men in streets and public places to sleep with them in return for money.
In the Syrian coastline, however, the residents observed that a large number of young people visited the house of a man and a woman in Tarus city, so they reported the police that arrested the two people. According to SOHR sources, the woman had slept with the young men for money, while the man had sold them illicit pills. Also, a large amount of hashish, illicit pills and aphrodisiacs were found in the house and confiscated.
On the other hand, narcotics trafficking has been also prevalent throughout Syria, as SOHR highlighted, in a report published in mid April, the prevalence of this phenomenon in areas under the control of the Syrian regime and Iranian-backed militias, in light of the escalating security chaos across Syria.
Meanwhile the drugs are distributed secretly and transported under camouflage by public and private means of transportation.
It is worth noting that narcotics are prevalent in most Syrian provinces, particularly areas under the control of the Syrian regime, especially south Syria region, including Al-Suwaidaa, Daraa, Al-Quneitra, Damascus and Rif Dimashq.