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The Guardian Monday March 8, 2004
Saddam was no defender of women, but they have faced new miseries and more violence since he fell
Women in
The Ba'ath
regime's "faithfulness campaign", an act of terrorism
against women that included the summary beheading of scores of
those accused of prostitution, is just one example of its
brutality against women.
However, it is
now almost a year after the war, which was supposed to bring
"liberation" to Iraqis. Rather than an improvement in
the quality of women's lives, what we have seen is widespread
violence, and an escalation of violence against women.
From the start
of the occupation, rape, abduction, "honour" killings
and domestic violence have became daily occurrences. The
Organisation of Women's Freedom in
A lack of
security and proper policing have led to chaos and to growing
rates of crime against women. Women can no longer go out alone to
work, or attend schools or universities. An armed male relative
has to guard a woman if she wants to leave the house.
Girls and women
have become a cheap commodity to be traded in post-Saddam
The idea that a
woman represents family "honour" is becoming central to
Iraqi culture, and protecting that honour has cost many women
their lives in recent months. Rape is considered so shaming to the
family's honour that death - by suicide or murder - is needed to
expunge it.
Like Iraqi men,
many women have lost their jobs. Marooned at home and lacking
independence, women are faced with new miseries. Islamist groups
have imposed veiling, and have issued fatwas against prostitutes.
Now "entertainment" marriages aretaking place. This is
an Islamic version of prostitution, in which rich men marry women
temporarily (often for only a few hours) in return for money.
The Iraqi
Governing Council - an American creature - offers no hope for
Iraqi women, consisting as it does of religious or tribal leaders
and nationalists who rarely make any reference to women's rights.
In fact, many IGC members have a history of violating women's
rights.
For example, the
Kurdish nationalist parties that have been running northern
One of the IGC's
first moves was symbolic. International Women's Day in
When the IGC
proposed replacing the secular law with sharia, there were big
demonstrations, but these have received almost no media coverage.
This is no surprise. When the
What is needed
is a secular constitution based on full equality between women and
men, as well as the complete separation of religion from the state
and education system. At a demonstration in
Amnesty
International has taken these threats so seriously that it has
written to Paul Bremer, the
The groups
represented in the IGC are irrelevant to Iraqis' demands and
desire for freedom. American support for Islamist groups through
the IGC exposes
· Houzan
Mahmoud is the