Iraq: Voice of Women Still Goes Unheard

From CBS News:

When leading prominent Iraqi women leaders from all across the country gathered in Baghdad in June 28, 2010 they had only one question on their mind: Ela Mata? Until when? The question was directed at leading political parties engaged in negotiations over government formation after the recent elections.

The group of over ninety Iraqi women from across Iraq had first met in April to highlight several challenges facing women in Iraq and produced a declaration highlighting Iraqi women’s priorities that were signed on to by over three thousand Iraqi women all across the nation.

However, only a few months later, women leaders from different political, ethnic, and religious backgrounds felt that discussions to address challenges facing women were futile if an Iraqi government was not in place. The growing fear that the dire security situation of 2006 and 2007 could reemerge overshadowed all other concerns and prompted the challenge to the leading parties: Until when?

Iraq: Grim Potwar Future For Widows

From Associated Press:

Three decades of wars, massacres and sectarian killings have left Iraq with as many as a million widows, by Iraqi government count. Hameeda Ayed is one of them.

At 45, with three children, she is part of a vast sisterhood in a tortured land, and for the more than 100,000 who lost their husbands in the U.S.-led invasion and violent aftermath, the struggling postwar government is of little help.

Ayed is entitled to 150,000 dinars (about $130) a month from the government, plus 15,000 dinars (about $12) for each of her children. But after two years of chasing after official papers and signatures on her application, having no friends in high places to grease the wheels for her, she says she is giving up; the endless standing in line was making her neglect the children, aged 10, 12 and 15.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Rising numbers of Iraqi women are being sold into sexual slavery every year because of the waning economy and security situation. Human rights organizations are highlighting the plight of Iraqi women and young girls, sometimes as young as twelve, exploited by criminal gangs for profit.

"The women trafficking trade is at its height," Houzan Mahmoud, representative abroad of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq said. "There has never been a situation as extreme, and it's frightening. Many of them have been trafficked to neighboring countries like Syria or the Gulf states or trafficked internally inside Iraq from one city to another."

The Baghdad Women's Organization estimates that at least 200 Iraqi women are sold into slavery every year, although the US-basedHuman Rights Watch estimates that the numbers are in the thousands. The organization warns that the figures may be higher if Iraqi refugee women in neighboring countries such as Syria and Lebanon are also counted.

With relatively few rights, the ability of Iraqi women to reintegrate into society after prostitution is limited. The women are often ostracized, attacked by their community and harassed by the authorities with charges of immorality.

Iraq: Women Only Bank

From Associated Press:

An Iraqi bank has opened a branch entirely dedicated to and operated by women in the holy Shiite Muslim city of Najaf, its chief, who admitted even he could not enter, told AFP Monday.

Abdel Razzaq Mansur, the chief executive of Babylon Bank, said the branch which opened on Sunday had so far worked with 50 clients and expected to be dealing with about 200 within a year.

"In Najaf, there are many women who are business women, and they have companies in many different lines of work," he said, noting the branch's 25-strong staff were composed entirely of women.

The only men working for the branch were special security guards stationed outside the bank on the street, Mansur said.

It will provide loans, investments, deposits and savings in both Iraqi dinars and US dollars.

Iraq: Women Wrestling Team

From Sam Dagher @ New York Times:

It doesn’t happen much in the Arab world, but a coach here decided in January to start an all-female wrestling team, the first ever in Iraq. The wrestlers love it and already dream of competing in the Olympics.

But there are many in this town south of Baghdad, which like much of Iraq is religious, conservative and governed largely by tribal tradition, who want the dozen girls and young women on the team to stop wrestling immediately. One tribesman has said they should be “slaughtered” if they continue. A Shiite cleric says the team should be banned because wrestling can lead to promiscuity and “transgressions” against Islam.

As a result of the pressure, four wrestlers have quit. But the rest, for the moment empowered by the post-invasion promise of greater democracy and equality, are defying the threats.

But it is the women who have touched a nerve, perhaps partly because of their ambitions. Three other teams were set up in Iraq after Diwaniya’s was formed with the backing of Iraq’s wrestling federation. In June, all the teams took part in a championship, which the Diwaniya team won, qualifying for an Asian tournament in September in freestyle wrestling.

Domestic Violence - An Increase

From the News Observer:

A Saudi judge told a conference on domestic violence that a man has the right to slap a wife who spends money wastefully and said women were as much to blame as men for increased spousal abuse, a Saudi newspaper reported.

The remarks do not carry the weight of law, as they were made out of court. But such public pronouncements by Saudi judges - who are also Islamic clerics - are often widely respected.

A rights activist decried the remarks and said she and other campaigners viewed them as the latest setback in women's efforts to gain the right to vote, drive, freely participate in politics and be protected from violence.

The comments at a recent conference were given as part of an explanation for an increase in domestic violence in the country. The judge said women were equally responsible for the increase, the newspaper quoted him as saying.

The paper did not say exactly when the conference was held. The judge could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Women in the audience loudly protested the judge's remarks, the newspaper said.

And from the Star Online:

The vast majority of Iraqi women face domestic violence on a regular basis and many commit suicide because of it, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Iraq and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan should take measures to stop violence against women, including honour killings and genital mutilation, the UN mission in Iraq, known as UNAMI, said in a regular report on human rights.

Iraq should "investigate incidents involving gender-based violence, in particular the so-called 'honour crimes' perpetrated against women, and take measures to ensure that persons found responsible for committing these crimes are held accountable and brought to justice", UNAMI said.

UNAMI said it was concerned about threats against women because of the way they dressed, and it repeated a statement from November that women were threatened by rape, sex trafficking, forced and early marriages, murder and abduction.

Iraqi Women & Education

From Middle East Online:

About 20 Iraqi women, all dressed in traditional black abayas, were gathered in Baghdad repeating a sentence from a primary schoolbook.

"They are illiterate but had the courage to come here and learn," Alaa al-Mayali, the project director, explained proudly.

The educational project, partly financed by the United States, has 20 such centres in Iraq's capital.

"They learn to read, write and count," Mayali said.

An unusual feature of the six-month-old programme is that the women are paid four dollars each lesson they attend.

Women in Iraq

From CNN:
"Four thousand women are running for office in Iraq's provincial elections Saturday, and many of them will be guaranteed seats under an electoral quota system.

Regardless of the votes their candidates receive, parties are required to give every third seat to a woman, according to a report this week from the International Crisis Group.

Al-Mamuri said she believes Saturday's vote can help women improve their position in society."

Iraqi Women & Politics

From the International Herald Tribune:

"Of the estimated 14,400 candidates, close to 4,000 are women. Some female candidates have had their posters splattered with mud, defaced with beards or torn up, but most have been spared the violence that has claimed the lives of two male candidates and a coalition leader since the start of the year.

For many of these women, the elections offer a chance to inject some much-needed fresh air into councils that are currently plagued by deep corruption and dominated by men and big political parties that are often ultraconservative.

But even if they win, they face numerous hurdles, particularly the entrenched attitudes of most Iraqi men, who view women as either sex objects or child bearers who have no place in the rough-and-tumble world of politics.

Despite the recent gains in security, some women continue to face threats, while others say the whole thing is a charade and not worth the effort."

Iraqi Women: Lack Seats in Govt.

From the International Herald Tribune:
"Early versions of the law, which governs the election of Iraq's 18 provincial councils, included a firm guarantee that women would have at least 25 percent of the seats - the same percentage mandated by the Constitution for the numbers of women in Parliament.

In the male-dominated Arab culture, the framers of the Constitution and the Americans who were involved in drafting it felt the quota was necessary to ensure that women would be represented.

But the provincial election law was changed several times, and the quota language was gone by the time it went to the Presidency Council, whose approval is needed for it to become official. It went back to the Parliament with several unrelated changes and was published in early October.

The lack of a strong guarantee for women's seats has only begun to gain widespread attention in the last few days."

Women Candidates Fear Elections

From the Buffalo News:
"Even as violence has declined, lingering fear bred by rampant crime and a small but die-hard insurgency has left many Iraqi women afraid to run in the elections, to be held by Jan. 31.

The election jitters are part of a larger concern about violence and traditional values or prejudice sidelining women from important jobs. The constitution provides that men and women have basic legal rights such as voting and owning property and suing in court. But deep differences exist within Iraqi society over the role of women and of Islam.

Under heavy U.S. pressure to promote gender equality, the Iraqis agreed to a 25 percent quota for women in the last elections for parliament and provincial councils, both held in 2005. A law paving the way for the new vote to be held by Jan. 31 maintains that requirement, opening the door for women to make up at least a quarter of the provincial councils.

But there's a crucial difference this time. In the past elections, names did not appear on the ballot - only numbers and symbols identified with political parties. That system helped empower well-organized religious parties and left many Iraqis feeling little connection with elected officials who were supposed to represent them.

In the new vote, the names of candidates must be presented to voters. The change to a so-called open list has scared some qualified Iraqis from running, particularly women. Activists are worried there won't be enough women to meet the 25 percent threshold, or that the parties will just find women to act as figureheads to fill the quota.

The problem is more acute for women who have come under attack simply for wearing makeup or refusing to don head scarves and head-to-toe black robes - behavior deemed un-Islamic by extremists.

Women also have come under scrutiny for defying traditional norms that discourage them from mixing with men or occupying a public role."

Iraq's Female Police Officers

The female members of Iraq's police force are continuing their training in the role to assist in the enforcement of the law within Iraq.

From the Star Tribune:
"The 30-year-old recruit and the 20 other women training at the academy are a critical part of the U.S. and Iraqi response to the latest deadly tactic of al-Qaida in Iraq: female suicide bombers.

But the academy — the only one of its kind in Iraq — is taking that response one step further. For one month, the women stay and train at the academy in the volatile Diyala province with 680 male colleagues.

Unlike many other security programs for women, where they come only during the day and where classes are confined mostly to search methods, this academy offers women the same lessons as men — including weapons training.

Women have been serving as auxiliary members of Iraqi security forces in markets and during pilgrimages, but these recruits will be full-time policewomen once they graduate next week. They also will receive an official police certification from the Ministry of Interior."


And from Yahoo News:

"She was wearing something rarely seen on an Iraqi woman — a police uniform of blue shirts and black pants.

There is still some resistance to women police officers in Diyala, one of the most violent pockets in Iraq. Some men believe the job is too dangerous. Others object to women leaving their families for a month to live at the academy.

Diyala police Maj. Raied Khalaf dismissed the idea of women officers: a "nightingale" who will be "a soft and easy target for abduction and murder."

But as the frequency of female suicide bombers increases, the need to include women in the police forces is overruling the opposition. Iraqi men are reluctant to search women and risk breaking social taboos, and al-Qaida exploits this by having them conceal explosives in long, flowing robes.

The number of attacks by female bombers in Iraq has tripled from eight in 2007 to more than two dozen so far this year, according to U.S. military officials.

Diyala has been particularly vulnerable. Women have carried out 12 suicide attacks this year in the strategic and ethnically diverse province northeast of Baghdad that was a former al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold.

Iraqi and American officials hope the women training at the academy can start closing that gap.

During their month at the academy, the women learn how to tame riots, take apart guns, set up checkpoints and search for weapons. When not in the field, they get courses in first aid and policing ethics.

The recruits — a mix of Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds — are told to place sectarian perspectives and politics aside and put their country first. The women recruits say it will be up to their individual stations on whether they can carry weapons, but many hope they can.

Some are widows whose husbands were killed by militants. Others have disabled husbands and relatives who can't work after being wounded in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. All need steady paychecks to support their children.

About 25 more women are set to attend the academy's next session before the U.S. military turns the center over to Iraqi control in November."


It is encouraging to see women taking a more active role in their nation's future.