The article raised a number of points that I recognized about prostitutes, even though those I interviewed and ultimately managed were in Amsterdam rather than in Iran.

You mention that many or most of the Iranian prostitutes were runaways. Runaways rarely run away without good reason. At the head of the list of good reasons is child abuse, whose most common form is paternal rape. No prostitute I interviewed was a runaway child, because a brothel of that kind will not employ women below the age of eighteen, but almost every prostitute I met had been raped as a child. As this fact sank in, I made it my business to figure out the relationship between early suffering and present career choice. I suspect the Iranian prostitutes are much younger than those I met, but I bet the two groups have broadly similar backgrounds and motivations.

Your story mentions that Iranian prostitutes' clients are frequently "pilgrims", i.e. tourists. We too had many tourists coming to the brothel - it was good they came in the summer, because that was when the regular clients, almost all of whom were married, middle-aged men, were on vacation with their families.

You mention this "temporary marriage" as an "escape clause" in Islam. Religions seem to disaprove of prostitution and to look down on those who practice it, but ancient wise men frequently provided a way out. Saint Augustine defended its existence as a "sewer" to take away the filth of society. These escape clauses do not seem to be phrased in a way that is flattering to women's bodies.

David Farer, author of Games Prostitutes Play