Women bear brunt of Iraq bloodshed

BAGHDAD — “There was a stranger at the door. He gave me an envelope which had two bullets and a letter that said ‘if you do not close your beauty parlour, we will kill you. Your work is haram (forbidden),’” says Asma Kadhim, 40, one of the thousands of Iraqi women facing the brunt of daily bloodshed.

That threat two years ago changed her life. Fearing for her and her family’s safety, Kadhim shuttered her flourishing salon in northern Baghdad’s Waziriyah neighbourhood and emptied out the work space.

“Home is the only place for Iraqi women now,” says this Shiite mother of two grown daughters, now working full-time as a housewife.

Kadhim’s problem is representative of the problems Iraqi women face in a country ravaged by war, then an anti-American insurgency, and then brutal sectarian conflict.

“The situation of women in Iraq is very bad. They have no right to lead a normal life. All their rights have been robbed,” she says.

Since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in March 2003 scores of Iraqi men and women who owned or worked in beauty salons have been killed or threatened by religious extremists—mainly Sunni, but also Shiite—who believe their work was against Islam.

Eman Ahmad, 40, owned a garment shop in the once upscale western neighbourhood of Mansour, but was forced to shutter her business after receiving death threats.

“Before the war in 2003, I used to work in complete freedom. I had my shop and my own car,” she said.

“I was threatened a year back and since then I have stopped working and stopped driving.”

The rights of women were well recognised by Saddam’s secular Baath party. Women would work openly, even as their traditional roles as mothers and wives remained deeply rooted in the society.

But since the US-led invasion the erosion of women’s rights in Iraq has become a “national crisis,” says a report published March 6 by Women For Women International, a US-based women’s group.

“Present day Iraq is plagued by insecurity, a lack of infrastructure and controversial leadership, transforming the situation for women from one of relative autonomy and security before the war into a national crisis,” the organisation’s report said.

Sixty-four percent of the women surveyed claimed that violence against them had increased in the last five years.

“When asked why, respondents most commonly said that there is less respect for women’s rights than before, that women are thought of as possessions, and that the economy has gotten worse,” the report said.

Seventy-six percent of the women interviewed said that girls in their families were forbidden from attending school.

Nearly 70 percent of those surveyed describe the availability of jobs as “bad,” and 70 percent “said that their families are unable to earn enough money to pay for daily necessities.”

Surprisingly, one of the most volatile regions for crimes against women is Iraq’s peaceful northern Kurdish region.

More than 100 Kurdish women attempted to commit suicide by self-immolation during the last four months to December, according to statistics from the Kurdish regional government.

Most of such crimes are reported as deaths due to accidental fires in the home.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq has regularly highlighted “honour killings” of Kurdish women as among Iraq’s most severe human rights abuses.

Iraq’s minister for women’s rights, Nariman Mahmoud Othman—herself a Kurd—said the biggest threat to women in Iraq is from Islamic extremist groups.

Because of this “women remain in their homes, and the few of those who do not wear the veil are afraid of being abused or killed as can be seen from cases reported in Basra and Baghdad,” she said in an interview with AFP.

Othman said widows also face a critical situation.

“The number of widows in Iraq are increasing, and with most of them being largely illiterate their status in the house is virtually that of a servant after the death of their husbands,” she says.

“Most widows are expected to only look after their children with no rights whatsoever for themselves. They are treated as if they have no right to live their lives.”

But despite these threats to women, Iraqi women are playing a key role, says the minister, adding the country did have strong women even though their number was far less to those who were victims of the present day situation.

“I think there will be a solution to the problems faced by women and Iraq will be a society based on equality and justice.”

AFP

Have something to say about the article? Say it here

***************