With their bright neon signs and glitzy decor, dozens of nightclubs line the streets of the Maraba district in the Syrian capital Damascus. It's here that men come from far and wide - car number plates are not just from Syria but Iraq and Saudi Arabia - to watch young women dancing.
Most of the dancers are teenagers and many of them are Iraqi refugees. They dance for the cash which gets tossed onto the stage. The dancers are surrounded by bodyguards, to stop them being touched by the men. But the guards also arrange for their charges to be paid for sex with members of the audience. A women came to my mother, who agreed to send me to these places. We needed the money Rafif Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees have moved to Syria and Jordan during the past four years, escaping the violence and instability that followed the US-led toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Women supporting families face the greatest challenge. The Syrian authorities and aid agencies do not know the exact numbers, but many of the women say they have little choice but to work in places like Maraba. Lost innocence Rafif is an innocent-looking year-old, her long hair tied in a pony tail.
She seems barely to understand the enormity of the crisis she is living. They are all in Baghdad. I am here with my mother and young brother only. None of my family know what I do here.
She won't say what she must do to earn this money. We needed the money. Nada, 16, says was dumped by her father at the Iraq-Syria border after her cousin "took away my virginity". Five Iraqi men took her from the border to Damascus, where they raped her and sold her to a woman who forced her to work in nightclubs and private villas. She is now waiting at a government protection centre to be deported back to Iraq. Exploitation The government says police have arrested Iraqi girls as young as 12 working as prostitutes in the nightclubs.
