All language subtitles for Undercover.With.The.Clerics.Iraqs.Secret.Sex.Trade.2019.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX].EN

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Muslim clerics
acting like pimps.

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

Undercover in Baghdad,

we expose a secret world
of sexual exploitation.

Widows of war, forced to
become halal prostitutes.

Men of God, giving religious

guidance on how
to abuse children.

In this holy sex trade
even children are for sale.

(mysterious music)

I'm in Kadhimiya,
Central Baghdad,

one of Shia Islam's most
important pilgrimage sites.

Millions visit this holy shrine,

and many couples come
here to get married.

Just walking around
the shopping arcade,

across from the main shrine,

I've come across multiple
marriage offices.

We've come here because
of increasing concerns

among Iraqi Shias
that some clerics

are abusing an ancient
marriage practice

to exploit women and girls.

It's called mut'ah
or (speaking in Arabic),

pleasure or temporary marriage,

and it allows a man to
pay for a short-term wife.

But it's illegal in Iraq.

I have to be discreet
filming this,

but we're here to
investigate allegations

that some of the clerics here

are grooming women for
halal prostitution,

and even acting like pimps.

Pleasure marriage, or
mut'ah, is a Shia practice.

But Sunni Islam also recognizes

another type of informal
marriage, which it calls misyar.

Many Iraqi clerics
say pleasure marriages

are sanctioned by Islamic law,

and can even be
good for couples.

This is Faris al-Musawi.

Tell me about mut'ah marriage.

What are the rules
behind mut'ah marriage?

The man pays for a
sexual relationship.

But the cleric said,
if the woman was poor,

the man would be helping her.

But what's the
difference between

mut'ah marriage
and prostitution?

(mysterious music)

Fifteen years of war have had a

devastating effect
on Iraq's women.

More than a million
have been widowed,

and 1.5 million people
are still displaced.

Clerics had told us
pleasure marriages

were a way of helping
vulnerable women.

But we'd started to
hear stories of abuse.

We're concealing the real
names of the women we spoke to.

When the so-called Islamic
State took her city,

Rana fled to Baghdad.

Soon after,
her husband left her.

(background market noise)

The man took Rana to one of the
marriage offices in Kadhimiya.

(sombre music)

Rana says she trusted
her new husband,

and didn't read the
marriage contract.

She thought she was
starting a new life.

(sombre music continues)

(suspenseful music)

After a few days, Rana's husband

took her out shopping.

Then, she says, without
any warning, he vanished.

(street noise)

She'd thought her
husband was sincere.

In fact, he'd tricked her into
a temporary pleasure marriage.

When Rana's family
found out the marriage

wasn't genuine,
they rejected her.

Unable to support herself,
she became a prostitute.

(suspenseful music,
street noise)

During a year-long
investigation,

our team spoke to
around 25 women and girls

who said pleasure marriages
had been used to exploit them.

All feared reprisals if
they showed their faces.

Iraqi lawyers, journalists
and human rights workers

told us that abuse
of the practice

was a significant
and growing problem,

but warned us it would
be difficult to expose.

One of our reporters went
undercover in Kadhimiya

with a secret camera.

If discovered,
he risks being detained

by one of Iraq's
feared Shia militias.

We're concealing his identity.

When I arrived,
I was really scared.

First checkpoint was
really scary because

I had a secret camera.

If they found this,
no way I can run away.

Only clerics can run
marriage offices here.

While many go through
years of religious education,

it's possible in Iraq
to become a cleric

with little formal training.

Posing as a potential client,

our reporter arranged to meet
several clerics.

I just went to
many of these offices

and started asking them

if you do a temporary
pleasure marriage.

Some of them they said yes.

One of them was Sheikh Hussein.

This is Hussein al-Musawi.

His office is opposite
the main shrine.

He has authorization from
the Ministry of Shia Affairs,

and a licence to
conduct marriages

from the Ministry of Justice.

My cover story was I am
Iraqi, living in London

coming to Baghdad
for a short trip.

Our reporter pretended
he'd met a girl,

and wanted to have sex with her.

He asked if the cleric
would do a pleasure marriage.

The cleric said it was better
not to have a written contract.

Without a contract, he said,

it's easier to
cover your tracks.

The cleric was giving
advice on how to use

a girl for sex,
and then get rid of her.

We had evidence they
said this but to

see it for myself
was really shocking.

I couldn't believe he
was telling me have sex

with her and just leave
her in the street, basically.

His services came at a price.

Seeking to understand
more about mut'ah marriage,

we approached more
than 20 senior Shia clerics

to take part in this program.

Only one agreed to talk to
us on camera, Ghaith Tamimi.

In Iraq, he'd been a
high ranking Shia cleric.

But he started speaking out

against the clerical
establishment.

After receiving death threats,

he's now living in
exile in London.

Ghaith told me this cleric
was breaking Islamic law,

and his advice could
put a woman in danger.

If she were caught with a man,

she risked being charged
with prostitution.

Despite being illegal in Iraq,

we found pleasure marriage was
widely available in Kadhimiya.

Out of 10 clerics we spoke to,
8 said they performed them.

One such cleric was Sayyid Raad.

Our reporter met him
outside the main shrine

and went with him
to his nearby office.

Raad said he had two
offices in Kadhimiya,

and employed four other clerics.

Our reporter saw his
licence to conduct marriages

from the Ministry of Justice.

His title, Sayyid,
means he claims

descent from the
prophet Mohammed.

He agreed to do a
pleasure marriage

if our reporter
brought a girl to him.

Our undercover
reporter met him again

in an upmarket shopping center.

Our reporter said
he'd found a girl

and now wanted to
do a pleasure marriage.

He said pleasure
marriages allowed a man

to do pretty much
whatever he wanted.

It's illegal to rent
a hotel room in Iraq

unless you're properly married,

but Sayyid Raad said
this was no problem.

(Atmospheric music)

Our team spoke to
more than 20 men

who said they did brief
temporary marriage to get sex.

All of them told us the
practice was widespread.

Ali, not his real name,

agreed to give an interview
if we didn't show his face.

To me,
it sounded like prostitution.

But Ali said he
wanted it to be Halal.

As we talked, Ali revealed
some men were paying

clerics for pleasure
marriages with children.

(suspenseful music)

We were discovering one
of Iraq's darkest secrets.

Clerics making money helping men

who wanted sex with
very young girls.

Sayyid Raad was prepared
to talk about it.

Our reporter had told him,
he'd met a 13 year virgin

and asked whether a pleasure
marriage would be Halal.

Vaginal sex was forbidden,
according to the cleric.

But other things he
said, were permissible.

Ghaith Tamimi says that most
Shia Muslims would be horrified

at mut'ah marriage being used
to enable men to marry children.

Sayyid Raad said
he was a follower

of Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani,

Iraq's most senior Shia cleric.

Like some other Shia
leaders in Iraq,

Ayatollah al-Sistani
has in the past written

that if a child under
nine was promised

in a marriage or
temporary marriage

sexual touching was
religiously permitted.

We approached the
Ayatollah's office to

clarify his religious
advice on this matter.

In a statement, he
said, times had changed.

And this had been erased
from his current books.

(building string music)

To continue our
investigation, we've come to

the most important
site for Shia Muslims.

(muffled loudspeaker)

This is Karbala.
It's the biggest

Shia pilgrimage
site in the world,

tens of millions of pilgrims
come here every year.

We'd already seen how clerics
were helping men break the law,

and even doing pleasure
marriages with minors.

We wanted to know whether
the religious authorities

in this holy city
condoned the practice.

I spoke to Sheikh Emad Alassady.

So we heard about pleasure
marriages, mut'ah marriages.

Do you do them here?

He said they do
still happen in secret,

and are allowable
under Sharia Law.

Don't you think these
pleasure marriages

exploit vulnerable girls?

In the streets
around the shrine,

our reporter asked four clerics

if they would conduct
a pleasure marriage.

Two said they would.

One of them was Sheikh Salawi.

(suspenseful music builds)

Sheikh Salawi said
he had completed

extended religious studies, and
was a member of one of Iraq's

powerful and
well-armed Shia militias.

Our reporter
pretended he'd met a

young girl who was
still a virgin.

We showed this footage
to Yanar Mohammed, who

runs a network of women's
shelters across Iraq.

Nine years old...

they are just opening
a shop for paedophiles,

inviting them from
all over the world.

The girl is looked at as
a piece of merchandise,

and using the merchandise
in specific ways is allowed,

but the virginity is
kept for that big sale

that they will do in the future.

(traffic sound)

The 'big sale' is marriage.

Yanar told me that some families

see girls as a financial burden,

and want to marry them off.

But parents can only
find a husband if

their daughter's
virginity is guaranteed.

Pretending he had a
real girl in mind,

our reporter asked Sayyid Raad
what would happen if he did

take the girl's virginity
during a pleasure marriage.

They are speaking of
how a man can get away

with the crime of
raping a young girl.

So 'just leave her and go',

what does this mean
for the girl involved?

If the males of the family are
aware of what happened to her,

they will be killing her,

and then the honour of the
male patriarchs is preserved.

It is always the girl and
the women who pay the price.

(tense music)

I interviewed a
girl who is at grave

risk of violence
from her relatives.

She lost her virginity
in a pleasure marriage.

We'll call her Mona

and for her safety,

we filmed an actor telling her
story, using Mona's exact words.

A few weeks later, the man took
Mona to a cleric in Kadhimiya.

She was only 14.

Her parents knew
nothing about it.

So the Sheikh knew
you were a virgin?

Did he ask for your
parents consent?

When she tried to stop seeing
the man, he turned to blackmail.

Mona had been groomed
by a sexual predator,

with the help of a cleric.

We wanted to see how
difficult it would be

to get a cleric to do a pleasure

marriage with a very young girl.

It turned out to be easy.

Sayyid Raad took our
reporter to a waiting taxi.

Our reporter had told
him he wanted to do a

pleasure marriage with
a 13 year old virgin.

He didn't ask to
meet the girl in

person, or talk to her family.

He agreed to do the
ceremony over the phone.

Basically another colleague of
mine, she was in the hotel and

when he ring the phone
my female colleague,

she was on the other
end of the phone

and she was ready to answer.

(phone ringing)

I'm not thinking this
marriage would be that simple.

The only question he asks
is, what is your name?

And he began the ceremony
without any questions.

In just a few minutes,
Sayyid Raad had made $200 for a

pleasure marriage with a girl
he believed to be only 13.

For Mona,
the consequences of her teenage

pleasure marriage
have been disastrous.

(sullen string music)

Her family are now pressuring
her to get married.

She told us something similar
had happened to her cousin,

with fatal results.

(sad string music continues)

Mona's in such an
impossible situation,

what she thought was
her teenage love story

has ended up ruining
her entire future.

And if it wasn't for the
cleric convincing her that

it's religiously OK,
this would have never happened.

(suspenseful music)

In Iraq today,
Conservative Shia clerics

give more than just
spiritual advice.

After years of
sectarian conflict,

they've gained
political leverage

often with the backing
of armed militias.

Activists say they're pushing
women's rights back decades.

There were laws that
protected women,

some protection for
us in our marriages.

It seems that all the things
that we gained in decades of

hard work of the generation
of our mothers were just lost.

Once the Islamic clerics rule
the first losers are the women.

(tense music)

Our findings show that Iraqi
law is failing to protect women.

To try to understand
what's happening,

I've come to the
courthouse in Sadr City.

(indistinct talking)

Just outside, I see the
clerics I'd met earlier.

They're operating a parallel
religious legal system,

conducting Sharia
marriages and divorces.

Faris al-Musawi is
doing a Sharia divorce.

It only takes 5 minutes.

Divorce under Sharia law

is easier than under
Iraqi civil law.

And leaves women
with fewer rights.

Sharia also allows
child marriage.

What's the youngest
age that you'll marry?

Under Iraqi law a girl
must be 15 to marry.

But this doesn't seem
to bother some clerics.

Inside the court, they're
dealing with the consequences.

Iraqi law doesn't
recognise Sharia marriages.

So to be legal,
couples must have

their marriage signed
off by a judge.

The law on the minimum age for
marriage should be enforced.

But that's not happening.

(talking)

Haneen is getting her
marriage registered.

She's dressed like
a grown woman,

but actually she's
only 13 years old.

(sad music)

A cleric married
Haneen to her husband

under Sharia law six months ago.

Now she's pregnant.

Because she got
married underage,

Haneen's father and groom
could get two years in prison.

Instead they've been fined $50.

It's up to the judge. And
these days, many are lenient.

(indistinct talking)

There's a queue of
fathers waiting for their

daughters to get married
before the judge.

Sami Okaybi is here with
his 14-year-old daughter.

He didn't want her face shown.

Why are you marrying
your daughter off so young?

Is there anything you're going
to miss from your previous life?

(indistinct talking)

The court's social
worker is registering

the teenage brides
and their grooms.

She's processed 126 underage
marriages in the last six weeks.

She predicts almost all these
teenagers will end up divorcing.

If you're a divorced woman
you don't have a future.

You're looked at as
a tainted person.

You become very
vulnerable to that cleric

who whispers in your ears
that he has the solution.

They call it temporary marriage,

being thrown off from
one man to the other

to the third, to the fourth,

until you find out that
you're a prostitute,

with a religious cover.

(ominous music)

Far from pleasure
marriage helping women,

we'd found that clerics were
using it to exploit women.

Preying on the most vulnerable,

recruiting them and
pimping them out.

Rusul is 16.

For her safety, an actor is
speaking her exact words.

Rusul was married off at twelve
and divorced at thirteen.

Then she did a pleasure
marriage to survive.

But soon after,
the man left her.

(sorrowful music)

The cleric told her that now she

would never find a real husband.

With a sister to support,

Rusul says she had little choice

but to start working
for the cleric.

Rusul's now
pimped by the cleric,

forced to have sex with
more than a dozen men.

(dramatic music)

Ali, who does pleasure
marriages for sex,

says he always pays
clerics to find him girls.

We already had evidence

the clerics we'd
been secretly filming

would perform
pleasure marriages.

But would they also
procure the girls?

Our reporter went
back to Kadhimiya

to Sayyid Raad's office.

(sad music continues)

In Karbala, Sheikh Salawi
hadn't seemed to think

he was doing
anything wrong either.

A few days later,
our reporter rang the Sheikh

to ask him if he too
would provide girls.

He told our reporter he could
offer him a choice of women.

(wings flapping)

Many of the young women
pimped out are destitute.

They're vulnerable to clerics

who distribute
charitable donations.

Ghaith Tamimi says
he's seen clerics

luring women into the sex trade.

Our undercover reporter had been

promised girls by
the Sheikh Salawi.

Now he was about to
meet him in Baghdad.

The Sheikh said he
had a girl waiting.

The Sheikh said he had
arranged a place where

our reporter could
have sex with her.

We have enough proof
he can provide girls,

so we left it there.

OK.

(dramatic music)

The Sheikh had proved
himself willing

to break the law and sell women.

By now, we had evidence this
practice was widespread.

I was about to meet a widow
whose story revealed a senior

cleric running what appeared
to be a prostitution ring.

Reem's husband was killed
in an IS bombing.

Soon after, she and her two
children lost their home.

When the cleric contacted
Reem a few days later,

he made a suggestion.

(dramatic music)

Reem says the cleric started
charging his friends money

to do pleasure
marriages with her.

It began one night when
he brought three men.

(ambient sounds of town square)

We can't identify which cleric
Reem alleges abused her.

But she says that
she was raped in one

of these offices in Kadhimiya.

The lucky ones
reached our shelters.

The ones that are not lucky...

What happens to them?

They end up in brothels,
and they don't live long.

I would say their life
expectancy is like 35.

We...

so many who were about
to throw themselves

off the bridge, into the river.

(tense music building)

We had evidence
clerics had ruined

women's lives with
pleasure marriages.

We'd filmed a cleric boasting
he had girls for sale.

Now,
after months of preparation,

we were about to try

to catch a cleric in
the act of pimping.

Our undercover reporter set
up a meeting with Sayyid Raad.

Once he felt safe,
he signaled to a

young woman in the
back of his taxi.

She says she's 26.

To protect her,
we've disguised her identity.

Our reporter makes it clear
he's only here to talk.

It was a very difficult meeting

but it was important to prove
Sayyid Raad he brings girls.

Sayyid Raad took
charge of negotiations.

Sayyid Raad seemed
keen to get the

deal done as quickly
as possible...

We had the evidence we needed.

It was time to end the meeting.

Our reporter took Sayyid
Raad aside and said he

wouldn't go ahead with
the pleasure marriage.

But Sayyid Raad wasn't ready
to give up on the deal.

We'd captured
evidence that a cleric

was prepared to
pimp a young girl.

The cleric wanted his $400.

He was willing to
bring as young as he has to,

he just didn't want to
let that deal go past him.

It's a good franchise
for these vampires.

They suck the life
out of young girls.

And leave them to deal
with their miseries.

We wanted to put our allegations
to the clerics we'd filmed,

but it was too dangerous
to do it in person.

I phoned Sayyid
Raad from London.

(speaking in Arabic)

He hung up.

We also called the other
clerics we'd secretly filmed.

Sheikh Salawi didn't respond.

Hussein al-Musawi
denied agreeing

to do a mut'ah marriage.

We put our evidence to Iraq's
Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani,

one of the most senior
clerics in Shia Islam.

In a statement, he said:

He said the abuses we'd
seen were happening because

the authorities were
not enforcing the law.

We took our evidence to the
Iraqi ministry of Shia affairs.

They said they had no
oversight over marriage offices

in Kadhimiya, and
declined to give an interview.

The Ministry of Justice,

which issues licences to conduct
marriages, also declined.

An Iraqi government
spokesman told BBC Arabic,

"if women don't go
to the police with

their complaints
against clerics,

it's difficult for the
authorities to act."

But for many young
women across Iraq,

there's no hope of justice.

Mona can never let
her family find

out about her pleasure marriage,

so going to the police
seems impossible.

Since we spoke to Mona,
she's run away from home.

Rusul is still
working for the cleric.

She feels she has no choice.

Reem escaped the
cleric in Kadhimiya.

She's still traumatized.

(weeping, heavy breathing)