IRAQI WOMEN: WHAT NEXT?
News stories early last week announced that Shiite clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, would push for Islam to be enshrined in the new Iraqi constitution. Though just what this would mean in practice was under debate, reporters, primarily Western, seemed to believe that under the new constitution women would not be treated as equals with men:
Shiite clerics urge Islamic law in Iraq
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=9116 Recall the December 2003 effort by conservative forces in the Iraqi Governing Council to enact Resolution 137, which would have eliminated Iraq's personal status law, a set of rules that has long protected the rights of women. If enacted, Resolution 137 would have threatened women's rights by forcing Iraqi women to rely on religious institutions, rather than civil courts, for such personal matters as marriage, divorce, child custody, and property inheritance, among other issues.
Yet, one needs to reflect upon the varying interpretations of how an Islamic-based constitution would treat women. "Dr. Junan al Ubaidi, a Shiite pediatrician and member of the interim national assembly, argued that a government that looks to Islam for guidance is still capable of protecting women's rights. She said critics of a religion-based constitution failed to recognize Iraq's rich Islamic history. Al Ubaidi, 43, said a Muslim woman was allowed to negotiate the terms of her marriage, seek work or education, take custody of her children after divorce and keep her own money. Islam views women as individuals, and, unlike many Western societies, most women keep their own names after marriage. 'Equality? We don't believe in equality. We have more rights than men," said al Ubaidi, who's running for office on the leading ticket. 'It's all in how you understand rights. If I believe my right is to wear this black robe and you ban it, then my right has been taken.'
Iraqi Women Divided Over Whether to Vote Conservative
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8747 Regardless of how the new constitution deals with women, there is no doubt that since the March 2003 invasion, the plight of women in Iraq has worsened.
Women for Women International recently released a survey of 1,000 Iraqi women living in Baghdad, Mosul and Basra. The introduction to the survey includes the following remarks about security risks for women: “… fear or violence, abduction and rape have emptied the streets of women and caused disruptions to education as children are also increasingly kept at home. Growing numbers of women are also leaving the country. … Women with Western dress and progressive ideas have been attacked. The abduction and murders of these prominent women have sent a ripple of fear through local communities.”
According to the women surveyed, security is not the only problem: none of their families' most basic needs were being entirely met; and approximately half of the families lacked medical care, education AND housing. Despite this, 90.6% of the women surveyed said they are hopeful about their future (Ample proof of the Iraqis' continual resilience.)
First Post-War Survey of Iraqi Women Shows Women Want Legal Rights; Dispels Notions That Women Believe Tradition, Culture Should Limit Their Participation in Government
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=9031 Zainab Salbi, the president of Women for Women International, described the fear that women feel in Iraq these days in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. “… she said her recent visit to Baghdad from her current home in Washington, D.C., was unlike anything she has experienced. She so feared assassination she slept in a different house every night. For the first time in her life, she covered herself with a traditional Muslim scarf when she went outside, afraid of the religious fundamentalists who have been attacking, kidnapping and killing women in professional and leadership roles.”
In Baghdad, women fear everyone
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=9011 Salbi's fears of religious fundamentalists are reflected in recent interviews by Jackie Spinner: "I put on the scarf because I wanted to walk in the street without fearing someone will kill me or kidnap me," said one of the women. " I want to finish my studies. Without the scarf I cannot. I heard rumors about killing women without a scarf. Why should I risk my life?"
Another young woman interviewed in this article said she has chosen to wear a scarf since she was 14, but she also cannot stand the idea that women would feel forced to put on the full cloth headdress -- one piece that crosses the forehead to hide the hairline completely, the other a longer drape that covers the head. "Those who want to force women to put on a scarf want nothing [Western] to spread in Iraq," she said. "They want us to be another Kabul," she added.
Head Scarves Now a Protective Accessory in Iraq
Fearing for Their Safety, Muslim and Christian Women Alike Cover Up Before They Go Out
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8568 Just days ago, riverbend, the author of the Baghdad Burning blog, was told to “dress appropriately” when she accompanied a friend to a university appointment and didn't have her head covered. Riverbend imagines what might be in store for Iraqi women with parties such as the Da'awa and Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq in power. She says those parties are already in power in colleges and universities today, and “They harass Christian and Muslim girls about what they should and shouldn't wear”, among other things. “Young females have the option of either just giving in to the pressure and dressing and acting 'safely'- which means making everything longer and looser and preferably covering some of their head or constantly being defiant to what is becoming endemic in Iraq today. The problem with defiance is that it doesn't just involve you personally, it involves anyone with you at that moment- usually a male relative. It means that there might be an exchange of ugl!
y words or a fight and probably, after that, a detention in Abu Ghraib.”
And Life Goes On …
http://www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ But women's fears in Iraq and their desire to take up the veil go far beyond concerns about religious fundamentalists. According to an article in Al-Jazeera, "Since the latest U.S. war and occupation, women in Iraq have become literally an endangered majority. Violence against them abounds on several fronts. Economically, they are hit hardest by the country's nearly 70 percent rate of unemployment. Men are preferred for the few jobs that exist, even though huge numbers of women are widows and single heads of households. Before the war, food was rationed, but now it is every man and woman for themselves. As casualties of war, women and children are the overwhelming majority of those wounded and killed by "precision" bombs and missiles...What are perhaps the most sadistic acts of the occupation...are widespread gang rapes and other abuses of women and children detainees by U.S. and Iraqi jailers. Most of these victims, many of whom are raped repeatedly, have only been rounded !
up to be used as hostages to force male relatives to surrender... Countless of these women have committed suicide or have been murdered by relatives to protect the 'family honor'... sex traffickers are seizing women and selling them into prostitution. Some of these women are sold instead of being released after being kidnapped for ransom or raped; others are apparently taken at random. Women and girls cannot safely leave home to work, go to school or lead a normal life...The violence provides a strong incentive for women to wear veils."
Iraqi Women as Victims of the Occupation
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8140 Violence and fear were on the mind of Nadia Ahmed (a pseudonym) who recently wrote a journal for the newspaper Le Monde: “Fear. That's the word that came to mind when I sat down to write this text. What else could I have chosen, except perhaps 'anguish,' 'trembling,' or 'disgust'! These words are my daily lot since the accursed night of March 20, 2003, and the beginning of the Americans' war against my country. As an Iraqi woman, the mother of two children, Samer, 16, and Ahmed, 10, I can say that today fear accompanies me everywhere, even in my bed, which has become a collective one, shared with my sons, for fear of dying apart, in our own rooms, if a rocket or missile should ever by mistake crash in upon us during the night. Fear, again, of waking up in the morning to find them dead and far from me . . . Fear, too, of seeing Americans break in the door to search our house, as they do so often elsewhere.”
According to Le Monde, Ahmed is a 49-year-old woman who lives in Baghdad and has “no marked political commitments.”
An Iraqi Woman's Journal
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=9204 "I call it Code Orange in Iraq right now,'' Salbi of Women for Women International told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Women are barometers for how a society is going. Bad things in a society always start with women, and good things, too.''