Life for women in Iraq ten years after...much worse

[bodie]

I am tired. It is 3am.  Please excuse writing ability.

I am just saying walking away from this mess feels a bit shitty.


Nighty night I2

[Jack]

Night.

[Adam]

I doubt that you had any real opinion, you were just fishing for an opportunity to smear. You were pinned and now you have gone the haha child route. Good job. Adam.

Incorrect.

I'd say it was yOU who started turning this away from what it was about

(not denying I was winding you up in the last couple posts, but I didn't start posting in this thread because of you, Les - I'm not that interested in you)

['andersom']

The founding statement of OWFI contains a mandate in six points :

    To put in place a humanist law founded on equality and the assurance of the greatest freedom for women, and to abolish all forms of discriminatory laws;
    To separate religion from the government and education;
    To put an end to all forms of violence against women and honour killings, and to push for punishment for the murderers of women;
    To abolish mandatory wearing of veils, the veil for children and to protect freedom of dress;
    To put in place the equal participation of women and men in all social, economic, administrative and political spheres, at every level;
    To abolish gender segregation in schools at all levels.

I hope they mean that.

Why wouldn't they mean that?

[Al Swearegen]

I got no interest in attacking men.

In fact, apportioning blame seems pointless and possibly impossible due to the complex number of factors responsible.

That does not mean ignoring it is right either.   I do believe that I am part of a nation who elected a government who, along with other nations, naively executed a war which directly or indirectly amplified the misery of the lives of these people.    That is so huge I can't ignore or forget it.

I have no idea how best to put things right.  Probably impossible to do so.

Acknowledgement and an effort to look much closer at decisions affecting Iraq is something to work towards, I suppose.  At least that should be possible.  It would be a start.

I think it was a big fuck up.  All who participated should say so, openly.  Even the big guns like the UN.

The decisions made, like the installation of the interim government of Iraq were clearly ill thought out.  Like the proportions of sunni muslims, Kurds etc.  The complexities of sectarianism was, IMO, misunderstood and caused further unrest.

The subsequent decisions made by this 'new government' have made matters worse.  Decisions like making 'pleasure marriages' legal,  the reintroduction of Sharia law which blatantly makes women second class citizens, are all examples of this giant fuck up.

We can't turn the clock back, but I think  by acknowledging and talking about it, it makes it less likely to happen in the future.

Sure, folks will say "casualties of war, get over it" and I am sure people will point out the suffering of bygone wars too.  That is not progress.
[/quote]

Agree with this

I do believe that I am part of a nation who elected a government who, along with other nations, naively executed a war which directly or indirectly amplified the misery of the lives of these people.    That is so huge I can't ignore or forget it.

I have no idea how best to put things right.  Probably impossible to do so.

Acknowledgement and an effort to look much closer at decisions affecting Iraq is something to work towards, I suppose.  At least that should be possible.  It would be a start.

Yeah and this

[Al Swearegen]

I doubt that you had any real opinion, you were just fishing for an opportunity to smear. You were pinned and now you have gone the haha child route. Good job. Adam.

Incorrect.

I'd say it was yOU who started turning this away from what it was about

(not denying I was winding you up in the last couple posts, but I didn't start posting in this thread because of you, Les - I'm not that interested in you)

Cool story. Only you were not winding me up so you either failed badly in your endeavours or you are making this story up.

[Al Swearegen]

I don't see anything wrong with my original post about Iraqi women.  I don't see how the struggles faced by women are equal to that of men.  Their roles in society are very different, so I have to assume their struggles are too.

Not saying life is a stroll in the park for Iraqi men, and I think it would be interesting if someone felt so strongly about men's issues in Iraq to make a thread about that.

Didn't Calavera start his own site 'just for men' or something like that?  Can't remember it's name but I do recall it was 'for men's issues'!   I can't recall any complaints about that so I don't feel in any way sexist for highlighting the specific troubles faced by women in this instance. 

Anyway, I know and expect thread derailment, but going back to my original post which was to look more at if/ how 'our'(UN backed coalition) played any role in making the lives of these women worse. 

Some supporting evidence is listed below:

The quotes below come from UNwomen.org

According to the UN’s Women in Iraq factsheet, women “represent one of the most vulnerable segments of the population and are generally more exposed to poverty and food insecurity as a result of lower overall income levels.”

In Iraq, women are guaranteed a minimum of 25 per cent of seats in Parliament due to a quota law introduced in 2005. While the law does not apply at the local level, in the run-up to the recent regional elections, the Iraqi High Electoral Commission passed a decree ensuring that at least 25 per cent of the representatives on every regional council would be women. 

The information quoted below is from http://www.equalityiniraq.com/ the website of OWFI (organisation of women's freedom in Iraq)

No-one knows for certain how many Iraqi women and children have been sold into sex slavery since the US-led Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

The group that Mahmoud works for, the Baghdad-based Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), puts the figure in the tens of thousands.

"Crimes that were virtually unheard of before have now become commonplace. So-called honour killings have shot through the roof and mass unemployment has pushed many women, especially war widows, into prostitution," she says.

"Women have all but disappeared from public life for fear of being raped, killed, kidnapped or trafficked to foreign countries."

Mahmoud points out that legislation allowing polygamous marriages was passed last year by the puppet Kurdistan regional government despite public outrage.

And Iraq's draft constitution has paved the way for oppressive sharia law.

Did 'we' play a part in this?

When Fatin found out her father was attempting to sell her, she immediately sought help from the law.

"I ran away from Najaf and escaped to Baghdad where I found my mother and asked her if she knew what my father was planning," says 22-year-old inmate Fatin, "So she took me to court in Baghdad, we got a lawyer and brought a case against my father."

Months passed and the lawsuit was never heard. While awaiting justice, Fatin says her father raped her. After the attack, she killed him, was tried, and is currently serving the fifth year of a 15 year sentence.

Muscati, who's studied trafficking extensively in Iraq, can't understand why Iraqi officials aren't doing more to stop it.

"Why is the Iraqi government not prosecuting the traffickers?" Muscati asked. "There hasn't been a case of prosecution against a trafficker that we're aware of. Why is the Iraqi government not passing a law to make it more difficult for trafficking?"

“The situation has become much worse since 2003, after the U.S. led invasion of Iraq,” Nadya Khalife, a women’s rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa region at Human Rights Watch told The Media Line.


“More women have become widows and orphans and have turned to prostitution to simply make ends meet,” she said. “There are simply no other alternatives for women who head households to locate other sources of income. In Syria and Lebanon, for instance, Iraqi families have simply exhausted their financial savings and some of these families have forced their own wives and daughters into prostitution.”


Mahmoud said that since 2003 more than 70% of Iraqis have lost their jobs, a situation compounded by a lack of welfare provisions.


“We have more than four million widows in Iraq… who will provide for these women?” Mahmoud asked. “The situation created absolute poverty, particularly for women, and these women have virtually no other option but to turn to prostitution.”


“There’s nothing called choice in this,” she stressed. “They are either being forced into it because of the economic and political situation or because of a lack of security, whereby women and young girls are being kidnapped.”


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.

sorry, this is a long one

An article by Yanar Mohammed written for TerraViva magazine which was dedicated for the UN Resolution 1325 on women in areas of conflict. A shorter version was published in their last issue.

The UN resolution 1325 was passed unanimously ten years ago for a good reason. Women in conflict zones never participate in decision-making throughout or towards the end of conflicts. They rarely get the protection they need against gender-based and sexual violence. In time of war and military conflict, women's rights in practice and legislation are lost due to a prevailing culture of military and para-military violence which is usually practiced by males. The post-conflict transitional times call for new legislation, which rules the lives of many generations to come, still regularly lack any gender-based perspectives.


Early-on in 2003, women of Iraq were not aware of the serious consequences of an inclusive military invasion which ousted and uprooted all government institutions. With well-meant naivety, we thought we can turn a dark scenario into a bright one, one that is only lacking a people's ideology of freedom and equality, until we were stricken by the stubborn facts on the ground, or rather the atrocities which found their way to women and children through the gaps of insecurity and chaos.

These atrocities seemed to target women in many ways and quite often claimed lives and destinies of many who were dear to us. While unable to awake from a nightmare which was imposed by an illegal and unjustified invasion, we still had to deal with the aftermath which struck women's lives more profoundly and fatally than the males, especially those on the top of the food chain, those who rule, exploit, and thrive from these atrocities.

OWFI had decided then to watch, document, and denounce. We were voicing out the sufferings of the killed, lost and exploited in the society. As dangerous as the task was, persistence at it helped us create a small albeit bold base of fierce women-activists who did not compromise or appeal to the violent warlords, or rather the winners of the conflict, who have mostly become the leaders of the so-called democracy.

Creating an oasis of Feminist Resistance in Iraq was meant to defend a uncompromised right of Iraqi women to participate in decision making, get the protection they deserve, maintain their threatened women's rights, and force a gender-based perspective for the legislation of a secular egalitarian and non-ethnic constitution.

Challenging women's enemies was our main task throughout seven years of surviving in a fundamentalist militia culture which made us witnesses to all the above-mentioned atrocities, which were no longer abstract concepts on paper. They became nightmares which we learnt to live with, escape from, and still document, and denounce.

Mass killings of women in the south: a mix-up of religious militia cleansing and
encouragement of honour-killings by self claimed vigilantes. Although more than 300 women were killed in the city of Basra alone between 2006-2008, the criminals still live free and have the upper hand in the society. Simultaneously, honour-killings continue to take place in alarming rates in all the cities of the center, south, and North. No legislation or campaign have been administered by any governmental facility or media against these crimes which spare lives of hundreds of women every year. In addition, a thriving practice of FGM takes place in the Kurdish north, and female suicide rates rise as the killers have found a way to impose shame on the females and let them kill themselves, thus leaving the males unaccused.

Trafficking into modern-day sexual slavery: In every neighbourhood in the capital, there is a brothel where teenagers are bought and sold-and sometimes exported into a "good" financial deal for an Arab Gulf countries. Girls as young as 11 or 12 are priced locally and cross-borders for the ultra rich Arab sheiks of the gulf. A visit to the female prisons -adult and juvenile- reveals that more than half the inmates are victims of trafficking. The other surprise is that the justice system treats them as criminals and not as victims. When OWFI confronted a female parliamentarian Al Mousawi, with the alarming numbers of females plagued by trafficking, her response was to accuse us of fabricating lies against the "honour" of Iraqi women.

Four million female population of widows and orphans of war: mostly have no education, male protection or financial support. Consecutive wars and previously imposed UN economic sanctions have left them destitute, displaced or homeless. Many become victims to trafficking, pleasure marriages, or prostitution in a society where systemic violence of militia members can spare their lives anytime, with no legal punishment.

Economic insecurity of a disempowered female population, is not a concern of the state. The surplus of governmental budget, 52 billion dollars, serves the military needs of rivaling militias who have turned into "political" groups overnight, or for compensating so-called US victims of the late Iraqi dictator, while teenage girls get bought and sold daily among traffickers and brothels with nobody to think of their human rights, as these decisions are made by enemies of women.

Healthcare security is not the responsibility of the state anymore. Giving birth to children in decent hospitals has become unaffordable to the majority, as hospitalization is gradually getting privatized. Neither do the current Iraqi hospitals treat numerous kinds of cancer which had increased due to an unprecedented exposure to depleted uranium because of two consecutive American wars on Iraq.

Legislation of female enslavement: After months of political dispute on finalizing the constitution in 2005, the Shiite Iran-based militias proved to be the strongest on the ground and passed their version of a most archaic constitution which determines sharia as the main resource for legislation. The constitution was immediately congratulated as the "most democratic constitution in the Middle East" by the US Ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad. By the new constitution, Polygamy is allowed, abortion is illegal, economic rights are unequal - inheritance for females is half of males. Many forms of domestic violence are legal.

Misogynist female parliamentarians: When most of the representatives of women (more than 25% of parliament) do not introduce a gender perspective into the parliamentarian sessions, but confront and discredit feminist efforts on the ground, women's representation as it comes in UN Resolution 1325 fails. In one of the regional conferences, a female parliamentarian Damluji, scolded many of the Iraqi feminists for not reporting their findings to the government. In other words, she was a representative of the government and not of the women of Iraq.

NGO-harassment governmental office: When building a new and strong government means assigning an establishment for investigating NGO work - meant originally to be an NGO-assistance office. Moreover, those facilities were assigned to political Islamist officers who accuse feminists of promiscuity and promoting prostitution.  Then, the gender-based perspective meant by UN Resolution 1325 has not been met.

The government of Iraq had successfully swept away or manipulated all the objectives of the UN Resolution1325 while claiming to be fair to women. The secular freedom-loving women of Iraq find themselves more vulnerable to a patriarchal and religious violent outbreak which is supported by both militia groups and the US militarization of Iraq.

OWFI has fortunately gained alliances among the women of the world who helped support the initiative of the Feminist Resistance of Iraq, by getting more resources to it, most of which was the MDG3 Fund from the Netherlands. When there is a women's will, there is a local and international way. All we needs is the support and solidarity of the freedom-loving people of the world.

Yanar Mohammed – OWFI president
19-10-2010

A lot of reading, I know.  My apologies.  Hope it explains better than my own words.

In times of threat people tend to look for "strength" and people are likely to see ruthless oppressive factions gain power and take away rights.
It really sucks too because in Iraq people are people. They have families they love and friends they care about and a want for better things BUT the people with the power are the ones who will impose stupid fanatical laws and green light kidnapping, religiously justified murder, radicalise interpretations of scriptures and such.

Women ought to be far more protected from some of the things they are exposed to. Men ought to not be risking their lives daily be going outside and trying to live "normal lives". It is tribal and shitty. Their civilisation is collapsing around them.

[Adam]

I doubt that you had any real opinion, you were just fishing for an opportunity to smear. You were pinned and now you have gone the haha child route. Good job. Adam.

Incorrect.

I'd say it was yOU who started turning this away from what it was about

(not denying I was winding you up in the last couple posts, but I didn't start posting in this thread because of you, Les - I'm not that interested in you)

Cool story. Only you were not winding me up so you either failed badly in your endeavours or you are making this story up.

Lol, I think we can safely say I was

You're hardly going to admit it, are you?

[Al Swearegen]

I doubt that you had any real opinion, you were just fishing for an opportunity to smear. You were pinned and now you have gone the haha child route. Good job. Adam.

Incorrect.

I'd say it was yOU who started turning this away from what it was about

(not denying I was winding you up in the last couple posts, but I didn't start posting in this thread because of you, Les - I'm not that interested in you)

Cool story. Only you were not winding me up so you either failed badly in your endeavours or you are making this story up.

Lol, I think we can safely say I was

You're hardly going to admit it, are you?

LOL I think you can safely say you give your self a lot of credit where it is not due.

I would hardly admit something that was not true, to humour you would I? That would make fuck all sense.

Then I would be speaking your language

[RageBeoulve]

I got no interest in attacking men.

In fact, apportioning blame seems pointless and possibly impossible due to the complex number of factors responsible.

That does not mean ignoring it is right either.   I do believe that I am part of a nation who elected a government who, along with other nations, naively executed a war which directly or indirectly amplified the misery of the lives of these people.    That is so huge I can't ignore or forget it.

I have no idea how best to put things right.  Probably impossible to do so.

Acknowledgement and an effort to look much closer at decisions affecting Iraq is something to work towards, I suppose.  At least that should be possible.  It would be a start.

The solution is to drop all the "cultural guilt" issues, professional victimism, nanny state/giant government trends, etc. In my opinion, all first world countries should stop becoming so weak and flaccid, and return to accepting personal responsibility on an individual level, performing with only excellence in everything that we do, and treating one another with respect and admiration.


As America stands now, the average citizen will be in diapers and fed through a tube in a few short years, only speaking or moving to declare some demographic commited an injustice against theirs and calling for their government to take action. How about your country?

I think it was a big fuck up.  All who participated should say so, openly.  Even the big guns like the UN.

The decisions made, like the installation of the interim government of Iraq were clearly ill thought out.  Like the proportions of sunni muslims, Kurds etc.  The complexities of sectarianism was, IMO, misunderstood and caused further unrest.

The subsequent decisions made by this 'new government' have made matters worse.  Decisions like making 'pleasure marriages' legal,  the reintroduction of Sharia law which blatantly makes women second class citizens, are all examples of this giant fuck up.

We can't turn the clock back, but I think  by acknowledging and talking about it, it makes it less likely to happen in the future.

Sure, folks will say "casualties of war, get over it" and I am sure people will point out the suffering of bygone wars too.  That is not progress.

We can't turn the clock back, but I think  by acknowledging and talking about it, it makes it less likely to happen in the future.

Fair enough. By realizing these are just fantasies, we can focus on more productive goals. I feel you, and I agree. Our generation has fucked up bigtime, and its probably a good idea for us to clean it up for the next generation.

Sure, folks will say "casualties of war, get over it" and I am sure people will point out the suffering of bygone wars too.  That is not progress.

They certainly will, and I can't help being pissed off when they do. I know it doesn't help to dwell on all the losses of life over the nonsense wars we've had in the past couple of generations, but forgetting them or taking for granted how awful that loss was is something a child would do, in my opinion.

We can't forget our mistakes, we need to pass on correct history to our offspring. There is less of a chance that they will make all the same mistakes, that way.

[ZEGH8578]

Look up Saddams regime, and the new regime, and compare. An evident difference will be clear: Saddams regime (as much as an asshole he was) was secular, and similar to Turkey, in the sense of being a secular muslim country.
After Saddam the government is islamic. Which, as usual, brings fanatical stuff with it.

From Wiki:
In 2004, the CFA chief executive L. Paul Bremer said he would veto any constitutional draft stating that sharia is the principal basis of law.[87] The declaration enraged many local Shia clerics, and by 2005 the United States had relented, allowing a role for sharia in the constitution to help end a stalemate on the draft constitution.

The Iraq war officially ended 2011,  but the Baath party was deposed allready in 2003, collapsed by the invasion, and the current sharia-influenced constitution up by 2005.

So, basically, yes, we went there and made it worse. They're welcome