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IRAQI WOMEN UNDER SIEGE

From an article by Marjorie P. Lasky with contributions from Medea Benjamin and Andrea Buffa*

A Report by CODEPINK: Women for Peace and Global Exchange

CODE PINK/GLOBAL EXCHANGE |1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

From 1958 to the 1990s, Iraq provided more rights and freedoms for women and girls than most of its neighbors. Though Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial government an 12 years of severe sanctions reduced these opportunities, Iraqi women, before the occupation, were still active in

many aspects of their society. Now that situation has dramatically changed. While women in Iraqi Kurdistan have made gains since the U.S. invasion, in the rest of the country, women today face violence, hardship and fear daily, and their futures are more uncertain than ever.

INSECURITYAND FEAR. Although brutal and violent, Hussein’s government operated under some rule of law where violence and its targets were somewhat predictable. Under the occupation, that rule of law has been shattered. Looting, violence and insecurity jeopardize

women in particular, as they are subject to assault and rape. Women walking on the streets face random violence, assault, kidnapping or death at the hands of suicide bombers, occupying forces, Iraqi police, radical religious groups, and local thugs.

DESTRUCTION OF INFRASTRUCTURE. Since the U.S. invasion, vital infrastructure, already deteriorating, has almost collapsed. Iraqis face a lack of medicine, food, shelter, clean water, electricity and other basic services. Women trying to raise families in the midst of this

chaos find themselves beset by skyrocketing unemployment, poverty and malnutrition, and a dearth of social services like decent schools and health care.

RESTRICTED ACCESS TO JOBS AND EDUCATION. The constant violence has trapped women and their children—particularly their daughters—in their homes. Fewer children brave the streets to attend school. Illiteracy is on the rise. Furthermore, despite initiatives to bring women into the workforce and involve them in reconstruction, of the 260,000 reconstruction contracts

in Iraq, less than 1,000 have gone to women.

THE U.S. IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. Some U.S. military personnel have committed crimes of sexual abuse and physical assault against women. Many women have told stories about rapes and routine sexual humiliation, particularly at detainment centers. This is especially horrific in a country where women, especially in rural areas, may be vulnerable to “honor” killings, when male relatives kill a woman who “defiled” the family name. U.S. military tactics have also victimized women and their families—displacing them from their homes, subjecting them to aerial assaults, and occasionally using women as bargaining chips in exchange for suspected

male insurgents.

CONSERVATIVE ISLAMISTS ARE GAINING GROUND. Conservative Islamic groups have gained tremendous power in post-invasion Iraq. While on the positive side, the new Iraqi Constitution guarantees that women must fill 25% of the National Assembly seats, the Constitution also maintains that no law may be passed which contradicts Islamic rulings. Under certain circumstances, this latter provision could curtail women’s rights and freedoms in areas such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. There are many ways to support Iraqi women. We

should remain vigilant in monitoring and reporting to the world any deterioration of Iraqi women’s rights.

WOMEN FOR PEACE should respond to requests of support from Iraqi women’s groups. To end the violence, we should call for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq and peace

negotiations that incorporate women into the peacemaking process. And we should insist that the countries that have destroyed Iraq’s economy and infrastructure pay for its reconstruction by Iraqis. I work in a salon for the ladies. There is no electricity, no water, the heat is killing us. Customers, when they peer in, see only darkness. They shy away, and this is where we are supposed to make a living. And what’s the quintessential thing for a hairdresser? Electricity. To use a generator requires oil…I am not the owner so I can’t buy that. The paradox is that when the owner…sees…no customers she refuses to pay us… There is no security, threats are flying.

PREFACE

Not much cause for celebration

As women around the U.S. celebrate Mother's Day, Iraqi women have little to celebrate. This is certainly the case for Iraqi women, whose daily lives have been reduced to the sheer struggle for survival. When a woman leaves her house in today’s Iraq, she embraces her loved ones as if she might never return. And many won’t. Iraqi women face missiles and random shootings by the U.S. and British forces, terrorist suicide bombs, and criminal mafia-type gangs who regularly kidnap Iraqi men, women and children. Yet, women suffer, as all Iraqis do, not only the complete absence of security, irregular electricity, insufficient clean water, minimal sewerage system, no adequate healthcare and few jobs in the context of an ongoing economic crisis. They are also exposed to gender-based violence and an increased social conservatism that is largely the result of the way political leaders manipulate women’s issues for their own purposes. Everywhere in the world, women and gender ideologies are used to show the difference between ‘us and them’: ‘our women are liberated while your women are oppressed’. Or, the other way around: ‘your women are morally loose while our women are honourable’. Right now Iraqi women are squeezed between the White House’s rhetoric of women’s liberation and conservative…

The Chickasaw Plum - Volume V - Number 5 - May 2008

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