BAGHDAD , Iraq ( CNN ) -- The women are too afraid and ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used . They have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children -- for as little as $ 8 a day . Suha , 37 , is a mother of three . She says her husband thinks she is cleaning houses when she leaves home . `` People should n't criticize women , or talk badly about them , '' says 37-year-old Suha as she adjusts the light colored scarf she wears these days to avoid extremists who insist women cover themselves . `` They all say we have lost our way , but they never ask why we had to take this path . '' A mother of three , she wears light makeup , a gold pendant of Iraq around her neck , and an unexpected air of elegance about her . `` I do n't have money to take my kid to the doctor . I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child , because I am a mother , '' she says , explaining why she prostitutes herself . Anger and frustration rise in her voice as she speaks . `` No matter what else I may be , no matter how off the path I may be , I am a mother ! '' Watch a woman describe turning to prostitution to `` save my child '' » . Her clasped hands clench and unclench nervously . Suha 's husband thinks that she is cleaning houses when she goes away . So does Karima 's family . `` At the start I was cleaning homes , but I was n't making much . No matter how hard I worked it just was n't enough , '' she says . Karima , clad in all black , adds , `` My husband died of lung cancer nine months ago and left me with nothing . '' She has five children , ages 8 to 17 . Her eldest son could work , but she 's too afraid for his life to let him go into the streets , preferring to sacrifice herself than risk her child . She was solicited the first time when she was cleaning an office . `` They took advantage of me , '' she says softly . `` At first I rejected it , but then I realized I have to do it . '' Both Suha and Karima have clients that call them a couple times a week . Other women resort to trips to the market to find potential clients . Or they flag down vehicles . Prostitution is a choice more and more Iraqi women are making just to survive . `` It 's increasing , '' Suha says . `` I found this 'thing ' through my friend , and I have another friend in the same predicament as mine . Because of the circumstance , she is forced to do such things . '' Violence , increased cost of living , and lack of any sort of government aid leave women like these with few other options , according to humanitarian workers . `` At this point there is a population of women who have to sell their bodies in order to keep their children alive , '' says Yanar Mohammed , head and founder of the Organization for Women 's Freedom in Iraq . `` It 's a taboo that no one is speaking about . '' She adds , `` There is a huge population of women who were the victims of war who had to sell their bodies , their souls and they lost it all . It crushes us to see them , but we have to work on it and that 's why we started our team of women activists . '' Her team pounds the streets of Baghdad looking for these victims often too humiliated to come forward . `` Most of the women that we find at hospitals [ who ] have tried to commit suicide '' have been involved in prostitution , said Basma Rahim , a member of Mohammed 's team . The team 's aim is to compile information on specific cases and present it to Iraq 's political parties -- to have them , as Mohammed puts it , `` come tell us what [ they ] are ... going to do about this . '' Rahim tells the heartbreaking story of one woman they found who lives in a room with three of her children : `` She has sex while her three children are in the room , but she makes them stand in separate corners . '' According to Rahim and Mohammed , most of the women they encounter say they are driven to prostitution by a desperate desire for survival in the dangerously violent and unforgiving circumstances in Iraq . `` They took this path but they are not pleased , '' Rahim says . Karima says when she sees her children with food on the table , she is able to convince herself that it 's worth it . `` Everything is for the children . They are the beauty in life and , without them , we can not live . '' But she says , `` I would never allow my daughter to do this . I would rather marry her off at 13 than have her go through this . '' Karima 's last happy memory is of her late husband , when they were a family and able to shoulder the hardships of life in today 's Iraq together . Suha says as a young girl she dreamed of being a doctor , with her mom boasting about her potential in that career . Life could n't have taken her further from that dream . `` It 's not like we were born into this , nor was it ever in my blood , '' she says . What she does for her family to survive now eats away at her . `` I lay on my pillow and my brain is spinning , and it all comes back to me as if I am watching a movie . '' E-mail to a friend .
Aid workers : Violence , increased cost of living drive women to prostitution . Group is working to raise awareness of the problem with Iraq 's political leaders . Two Iraqi mothers tell CNN they turned to prostitution to help feed their children . `` Everything is for the children , '' one woman says .