An empty sort of freedom (w/o Saddam, Iraq women have new misery/violence)

[papau]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1164429,00.html

An empty sort of freedom

Saddam was no defender of women, but they have faced new miseries and more violence since he fell

Houzan Mahmoud
Monday March 8, 2004
The Guardian

Women in Iraq endured untold hardships and difficulties during the past three decades of the Ba'ath regime. Although some basic rights for women, such as the right to education, employment, divorce in civil courts and custody over kids, were endorsed in the Personal Status Code, some of these legal rights were routinely violated.
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 Iraq (Owfi) has informally surveyed Baghdad, and now knows of 400 women who were raped in the city between April and August last year. <snip>

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. <snip>



· Houzan Mahmoud is the UK representative of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq

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