Re: Women in Iraq must fight to keep the rights/freedoms they had under Saddam.

On Mar 20, 8:52 pm, mg <mgkel...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Iraq war in a nutshell: Bush replaced a secular government and put
a bunch of extremist fanatics in charge and got some oil contracts.

On Mar 20, 6:44 am, GLOBALIST <free.tun...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Saturday, March 20, 2010
12:19 Mecca time, 09:19 GMT

Iraq: Women's rights in danger

 By Dahr Jamail and Abdu Rahman

Iraqi women demonstrators protest lack of security and basic services
[EPA]

Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq, women working in the public and
government sectors were entitled to receive a year's maternity leave
under family laws enforced by the former Saddam Hussein leadership.

In the seven years since the US-led invasion which ousted Saddam,
however, maternity leave has been cut to six months.

Since the Personal Status Law was enacted on July 14, 1958, when
Iraqis overthrew the British-installed monarchy, Iraqi women have
enjoyed many of the rights that Western women do.

But the statutes governing the status of women since 1958 have been
replaced with Article 2 of the new Iraqi Constitution, which states
that "Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic
source of legislation."

Sub-head A says "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed
rules of Islam." Under this Article the interpretation of women's
rights is left to religious leaders.

Islamic governance

Yanar Mohammed, a women's rights campaigner in Iraq, believes that the
US has "let go of women's rights" in the war-ravaged country.

"Political Islamic groups have taken southern Iraq, are fully in power
there, and are using the financial support of Iran to recruit troops
and allies," she says.

"The financial and political support from Iran is why the Iraqis in
the south accept this, not because the Iraqi people want Islamic law."

According to the post-2003 Iraqi constitution, parliament should be
comprised of no less than 25 per cent female candidates. As a result,
the amended electoral law of December 2009 stipulated that parliament
should comprise 82 female representatives.

Each party and coalition list must ensure that 25 per cent of its
nominated candidates are women. However, the women's quota has not
been filled since 2005 and as a result, the elections commission said
"special measures" must be implemented to ensure the quota is met.

Women's rights groups in Iraq and abroad have complained that the
Iraqi parliament has not provided information on what the measures
involve or how it would go about implementing them.

According to Maha Sabria, a professor of political science at Al-
Nahrain University in Baghdad, women members of parliament "stand up
to defend their party in the parliament, not for women's rights".

Lack of infrastructure

Sabria also makes a direct link between the deteriorated status of
women in the country to the lack of infrastructure, political and
economic stability, and security. She believes that women bear a
"double burden" as they have lost many of their freedoms due to, and
under, the US occupation.

"The violation of women's rights [is] part of the violation of the
rights of all Iraqis," she says.

"More men are now under the weight of detention, so now women bear the
entire burden of the family and are obliged to provide full support to
the families and children. At the same time, women do not have freedom
of movement because of the deteriorated security conditions and
because of abductions of women and children by criminal gangs."

Women, she says, are also now under pressure to marry at a younger age
in the hope that a husband (including his family and tribal
affiliations) will bring added security.

Sabria says that the abduction of women "did not exist prior to the
occupation. We find that women lost their right to learn and their
right to a free and normal life, so Iraqi women are struggling with
oppression and denial of all their rights, more than ever before."

"Tribal, backward laws"

The Constitution mandates that 25 per cent of seats in Parliament be
allocated to women

Since 2003, many Iraqis sought refuge in the tried and tested security
offered by tribal affiliations and allegiances.

As contemporary Iraqi society fell apart in the face of lawlessness,
abductions, revenge killings and overall lack of security, the tribal
system offered both refuge and order.

Some Iraqis believe that the decline in the modern and secular
standard of living since 2003 propelled the social dynamic back by
several decades.

"The real ruler in Iraq now is the rule of old traditions and tribal,
backward laws," Sabria says.

"The biggest problem is that more women in Iraq are unaware of their
rights because of the backwardness and ignorance prevailing in Iraqi
society today."

Fleeing Iraq

Compounding the severity of the situation is the fact that many women
also fled their homes because their husbands were arbitrarily arrested
by occupation forces or government security personnel. A household
without a male figure became far more vulnerable since 2003. Women
sought refuge with relatives and failing to do so fled to Syria or
Jordan.

According to United Nations estimates, more than four million Iraqis
have been displaced in the past seven years, including approximately
2.8 million registered as internally displaced persons.

Many live as refugees mainly in neighbouring countries, according to a
report by Elizabeth Ferris, co-director of the Brookings Institution-
University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement.

The report, titled, Going Home? Prospects and Pitfalls For Large-Scale
Return Of Iraqis, says most displaced Iraqi women are reluctant to
return home because of continuing uncertainties.

Obstacles to repatriation

For its part, the Washington-based Refugees International (RI) says in
another report - Iraqi Refugees: Women's Rights and Security Critical
to Return - that "Iraqi women will resist returning home, even if
conditions improve in Iraq, if there is no focus on securing their
rights as women and assuring their personal security and their
families' well-being".

The RI report covered internally displaced women in Iraq's semi-
autonomous northern Kurdish region and female refugees in Syria. "Not
one woman interviewed by RI indicated her intention to return," the
report says.

"This tent is more comfortable than a palace in Baghdad; my family is
safe here," a displaced woman in northern Iraq told RI.

The situation continues to be challenging for women within Iraq. Yanar
Mohammed believes the constitution neither protects women nor ensures
their basic rights. She blames the US for abdicating its
responsibility to help develop a pluralistic democracy in Iraq.

"I am an employee, and everyday go to my work place, and the biggest
challenge for me and all the suffering Iraqis is the roads are closed
and you feel you are a person without rights, without respect," a 35-
year-old government employee, who asked to be referred to as Iman,
said.

"To what extent has this improved my security," she asked. "We have
better salaries now, but how can women live with no security? How can
we enjoy our rights if there is no safe place to go, for rest and
recreation and living?"

Dahr Jamail is an independent American journalist who reported from
Iraq for eight months in 2003-2004. He is the author of Beyond the
Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq.

Published under an agreement with IPS.

The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not
necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

 Source: Al Jazeera

Hey! My country's special forces went into Afghanistan back in
November 2001 with the British SAS, the Australian SAS and the US Red
Berets.

One of the reasons why we're still in a combat role has to do with how
the Taliban shit on people, especially women.

It pisses me off how the USA still tolerates Saudi Arabia's ways, yet
we lose good men and women fighting the same crap in Afghanistan to
make the place not a Saudi Arabia.



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