Fighting for Women’s Rights in Iraq

by Houzan Mahmoud<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

I am a Kurdish woman born and brought up in northern Iraq. I feel compelled to write about Iraqi women because I cannot find, in the vast media coverage of Iraq, an image of Iraqi women that fits my own, or that of my many female Iraqi friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

 

The majority of women in Iraq that I see in the western media are wearing hijab. This is not my reality, nor has it been the reality of many Iraqi women, both within and outside Iraq, who do not wear the veil and who believe in the right of women to refuse to wear the veil. Women from fundamentalist Islamic families or tribes simply have no choice but to ‘cover’. But the many educated, professional women in Iraq had chosen not to cover themselves. Clearly times have changed.

It is essential that westerners do not feel distanced from Iraqi women because they appear to be so ‘different’, presented as they are in their hijab. They are no different in their need and desire for human rights as any other women. They have faced obstacles historically and the situation is, if anything, more grave now, in the post-war chaos.

 

Sharia Law: The Root of the Problem

Women in both northern and southern Iraq have suffered years of institutionalized oppression. This oppression has arisen from the adoption of Sharia law in both regions. Despite the notion that Iraq had a ‘secular’ state, the concept of ‘personal status law’ which governed it, was based on Sharia. Iraqi women were among the most educated women in the Middle East, and were able to enter the professions. Nevertheless the laws, based on the Sharia, discriminated against them, and even the professional women of the south were far from equal with men.

 

Northern Iraq: No ‘Autonomy’ for Kurdish Women

Northern Iraq has been considered to be a ‘Kurdish autonomous’ area since the Kurdish uprising of 1991 removed it from the authority of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. In reality the ‘autonomy’ of Kurdish people refers to its governance by two major nationalist parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP). These two parties are tribal in origin and their power is practised through tribal mores and networks, and therefore traditions which are Islamic in origin. This has strengthened, rather than weakened, the continuation of primitive notions of women’s subordination. The nationalist parties are more concerned with inter-political struggles than provision of protection or rights for the Kurdish people as a whole and the rights of Kurdish women are not on their agenda at all. The same Sharia law relating to females that was practised by the Ba’ath Party of Saddam Hussein has been seamlessly co-opted into the governance of the Kurdish autonomous region. Intimidation and violence against women abound, and ‘honour’ killings, legal according to the Sharia, are commonplace in practice, despite amendments to the law by Kurdish authorities under pressure from women’s groups at home and abroad.

 

After the 1991 uprising in northern Iraq, women’s rights organizations set up centres and refuges for women to protect them and help them defend their rights. These quickly came under attack by the PUK and were shut down with the excuse that they were ‘immoral’ institutions that did not comply with Kurdish traditions.

 

Southern Iraq: Professional but Not Equal

In southern Iraq the situation has not been very different. Women are educated and participate as professionals, but the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime has affected their progress and they have had no independent organizations to raise their awareness and defend their rights. In October 2000 more than 200 women were accused of being prostitutes and publicly beheaded. This was a political campaign by the regime to intimidate the population generally, but it also provoked and authorized the brutal slaughter of women who were actually victims of the economic sanctions imposed by America and its allies from 1991. The sanctions caused starvation and disease, and the provision of basic human needs such as food and shelter for their families became the prime concern for many.

 

Conditions in Post-War Iraq

So where are the unveiled women? Secular Iraqi women now find their rights under greater threat than before. America’s ‘war against terrorism’ has led both to the creation of more terrorists and to the increase in power of fundamentalist movements that oppose what freedoms Iraqi women still possess. Such groups have exploited the chaotic situation after the war to create an atmosphere of intimidation. Fatwas have been issued exhorting the crowd to throw tomatoes and eggs at any women – even Christian women – who appear outside unveiled. Professional women are finding themselves effectively banned from education, work, or even going shopping unless they wear hijab. Islamic leaders, both Shi’ite and Sunni, have acquired a firmer grip on Iraqi society. For women, that means greater terror and enslavement.

 

None of the likely future rulers of Iraq – chosen and supported by the American Bush administration – make a single reference to women’s rights in their political programmes. Each has a long established agenda of opposing women’s liberation and will continue to oppose any real advances. If the situation continues, Iraqi women will be pushed back into their homes, possibly with the exception of a few token women representatives in the interim administration. That will hardly constitute absolute and unconditional equality. The achievement of women’s rights should happen from the grass roots: through the explicit abolition of all kinds of discriminative laws and the establishment of a secular state by the Iraqis themselves.

 

Houzan Mahmoud is Editor of EQUAL RIGHTS NOW!

houzan73@yahoo.co.uk