Iraqi Women

1
Iraqi Women

• Under Siege

2
Pre-War Status of Women

• Iraq was one of the most progressive countries in
  the Middle East in its treatment of women.
• 1950s Personal Status Law
• 1970s and 80s women enter work force in large
  numbers, additional labor and employment laws
  beneficial to women
• 1990s Post-Iran-Iraq war backlash Saddam
  alliances with Islamic clerics and tribal leaders
  leads to deterioration of situation for women.
• Ongoing women subject to government repression,
  changes in the economy (sanctions). Strong
  womens movement.

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Post-War Status of Women

• The situation of women in Iraq has become
  utterly shocking. I have said many times that it
  feels as if we are living in an upside-down
  world. And that world is increasingly dangerous.
  It is heartbreaking to me to see the return of
  extreme, anti-women practices that we had not
  seen for many decades. When I grew up in Iraq,
  women went to school. Educated, professional
  working women were a part of our society. Today,
  a woman risks her life simply by going to the
  grocery store. Our lives have been ripped from
  us. - Yanar Mohammed, Organization for Womens
  Freedom in Iraq

4
Iraqi WomenIn Their Own Words

• The situation for women is the worst now
  compared with the pre-war period. Because of
  the security situation, its really very
  difficult to move around and very dangerous.
  Families are afraid for their daughters and dont
  allow them to be outside on their own. Two weeks
  ago, they found a bomb in front of the gate of my
  daughters school. And there are many kidnappings
  and rapes I know a girl who was kidnapped just
  three or four days ago. -Eman Ahmed Khammas,
  human rights activist, former director of the
  Occupation Watch Center.

5
Iraqi WomenIn Their Own Words

• "My cousin in Basra was beaten savagely by some
  of the Mehdi Army (the militia of Shia cleric
  Muqtada al-Sadr) because she tried to attend
  university," said a woman who spoke on condition
  of anonymity. "Now she never leaves her home
  unless fully covered, and then only to shop for
  food.
• Article by Dahr Jamail, Inter-Press Service,
  December 2006.

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Iraqi WomenIn Their Own Words

• "For a woman, it's just like being in jail I
  can't go anywhere," said Zahra Khalid. Khalid was
  an accountant at the Ministry of Planning until
  she received a death threat four months before
  this interview, quit and moved to a new home.
• Article by Nancy Trejos, Washington Post,
  December 2006. (Interviewed 16 women, ages 21 -
  52.)

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Iraqi WomenIn Their Own Words

• It is very difficult for women here. There is a
  lot of pressure on our personal freedoms. None of
  us feels that we can have an opinion on anything
  any more. If she does, she risks being killed,
  said Um Salam, a 42-year-old womens rights
  activist in Najaf who has been the victim of two
  assassination attempts.
• Article by Peter Beaumont, London Observer,
  October 2006. (month-long investigation)

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Violence and Insecurity

• Looting, violence and insecurity jeopardize
  women. Women walking on the street face random
  violence, assault, kidnapping, rape or death at
  the hands of suicide bombers, militias, foreign
  troops, Iraqi police, and local thugs.
• The constant violence has trapped women and
  children in their homes. Restricted access to
  work and school.
• Militias and U.S. forces have used women as
  bargaining chips to get to their husbands or
  male relatives.

9
Basic Human Needs

• Vital infrastructure has almost collapsed. Iraqis
  face lack of medicine, food, shelter, clean
  water, electricity, gasoline and other basic
  services.
• Health care system in tatters.
• Families displaced by war widespread
  unemployment high level of poverty.
• Food shortages, malnutrition.
• In some cases, women and their male relatives can
  struggle together to overcome this lack of basic
  resources in other cases, women must provide for
  their family members basic human needs on their
  own, because their husbands, sons and fathers
  have been killed, detained or disappeared.

10
Rise of Religious Extremism

• Extremist Shia groups have gained power in Iraq
  since the invasion, and can openly harass women
  who defy their interpretations of Islamic law.
• Many girls and women in urban areas who might
  have previously worn western clothes will not now
  leave home without wearing the hijab or abaya.
  Christian women as well.
• Women are being forced to curtail other behaviors
  - flyers tell women they shouldnt drive
  professional women receive death threats.

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Rise of Religious Extremism

• Human Rights Office of the UN Assistance Mission
  to Iraq There are reports that, in some Baghdad
  neighbourhoods, women are now prevented from
  going to the markets alone In other cases,
  women have been warned not to drive cars, or have
  faced harassment if they wear trousers. Women
  have also reported that wearing a headscarf is
  becoming not a matter of religious choice but one
  of survival in many parts of Iraq, a fact
  particularly resented by non-Muslim women. Female
  university students are also facing constant
  pressure in university campuses.

12
Laws and Political Representation

• In 2003, the U.S. appointed only three women to
  the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council there were
  no female provincial governors no women on the
  24-member constitutional committee that drafted
  the interim constitution.
• In 2003-2004, near passage of Resolution 137.
• In 2005, new Constitution ratified, requiring
  women be guaranteed 25 of seats in National
  Assembly. After Dec. 2005 election, 85 out of 275
  seats held by women. Four of 38 Ministries are
  headed by women.
• Ambiguity in Constitution regarding supremacy of
  Islamic law.

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Summary

• The war has replaced the brutality of Saddam
  Husseins regime with a new brutality that
  challenges the safety and well-being of women and
  their families in a myriad of ways.
• Womens daily lives have been reduced to a
  struggle for survival. When a woman leaves her
  house in todays Iraq, she embraces her loved
  ones as if she might never return.
• Women not only suffer what everyone in society
  suffers absence of security, few jobs and
  destruction of the infrastructure but they also
  suffer gender-based violence and an increased
  social conservatism.
• The war has also left women with the job of
  managing the psychological effects of the war on
  themselves as well as nurturing back to mental
  health other family members who are struggling
  psychologically because of the trauma of the war.

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Reasons for Hope

• Iraqi women are not passive victims!
• Iraqi women are active bloggers Riverbends blog
  (http//riverbendblog.blogspot.com/) Faiza
  Al-Arajis blog (http//afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.
  com/)
• Iraqi women have formed various womens advocacy
  organizations. (Yanar Mohammads OWFI Dr. Rashad
  Zidans Knowledge for Iraqi Women Society)
• Iraqi women have risked their lives to travel to
  the U.S. to speak out.

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Yanar Mohammed

16
Iraqi Women Speak Out

17
Iraqi Women Speak Out

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What We Can Do

• Monitor and report to the world on the state of
  womens rights in Iraq (international womens day
  coming up).
• Support Iraqi womens groups.
• Work to end the war and support real peace and
  reconciliation for Iraqis (four year anniversary
  of war coming up).