Japanese human shield now
the the Madam of Baghdad
By Ryann Connell
Staff Writer
January 25, 2005
Iraqi communists are up in arms, claiming the human shield who entered their country because she was opposed to the U.S. starting a war there is now operating a sex service for GIs.
"A Japanese woman called Yukiko Muragishi came to Iraq with her friends to act as a human shield and stayed there when the war had finished. She stayed because, inside Baghdad's Green Zone being protected by the U.S. military, she is running a whorehouse for U.S. servicemen and Iraqi politicians and it has made her very rich. All you Islamic leaders in your palaces in the Green Zone, your prayers are worthless as long as American soldiers are playing around in brothels," Shukan Shincho quotes an article listed on the Iraqi Communist Party's website last month.
Other Arabic publications have picked up on the story and reported it widely through the Middle East.
Yukiko Muragishi, however, the woman accused of being the Madam of Baghdad, vehemently denies the accusations. The 33-year-old native of Shiga Prefecture says she thought only of humanitarian concerns after developing a love for Iraq while visiting the country as a dancer a decade ago.
"It's true that I did run a massage parlor in the Green Zone from April to September last year. I'm also aware that there were snide rumors about the place being spread. But I want to state emphatically that there were never sexual services offered there. If there had been, the U.S. military would have expelled me," Muragishi tells Shukan Shincho, going on to explain why she opened a massage parlor for American servicemen. "Right after the war ended, I had the chance to talk to loads of American soldiers. Many were traumatized by what they'd had to do. To try and rid themselves of this feeling, they'd try and justify their actions. They often got so wound up with their justifications, you couldn't shut them up. The more I came in contact with American military members, the more I realized they were the victims of war, too. I wanted to do something to help them. The idea I came up with to do so was to provide them with therapeutic massages."
Muragishi arranged to borrow the second floor of a restaurant a long-time Chinese friend had operated and used the space as her massage parlor. Four massage students were employed as masseuses at the parlor, providing rubdowns for 30 dollars an hour-long session.
"There's no way I got rich out of it," Muragishi says. "When it got to dangerous, I returned to Japan in November last year and have since been working part-time at a factory near my parents' home."
Iraq experts are not surprised there's ballyhoo in Baghdad over "Madam" Muragishi.
"You've got a situation where somebody who went to Baghdad to act as a human shield because they were opposed to the U.S. war has suddenly turned around and started providing services for the American military," Yasuyuki Aizawa, head of the NGO Peace On operating in Iraq, tells Shukan Shincho. "Little wonder the Iraqis are mad."
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