[News] Women in Iraq

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Why Iraqi women aren't complaining

Their secular family law is about to be overturned and placed under 
religious control. So where's the outcry?

Haifa Zangana

Thursday February 19, 2004
The Guardian/UK

Iraqi family law is the most progressive in the Middle East. Divorce cases 
are heard only in the civil courts (effectively outlawing the "repudiation" 
religious divorce); polygamy is outlawed unless the first wife welcomes it 
(and very few do); and women divorcees have an equal right to custody of 
their children.
The "liberators" of Iraq can take no credit for this. The secular family 
code was introduced in 1959. Saddam Hussein weakened its inheritance 
provisions but left it mostly unchanged. Now it is under threat from the 
US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. IGC resolution 137 will, if 
implemented, eliminate the idea of civil marriage and place several aspects 
of family law - including divorce and inheritance rights - directly under 
the control of religious authorities.

I was in Baghdad when the resolution was issued, on my first visit home 
since 1975 when, fearful for my life and the safety of my family, I left 
the country of my birth. I noticed with amazement how little attention any 
of the women I met paid to resolution 137. Only 100 women demonstrated in 
the city's Firdose Square to condemn it. Where was the outcry?

I had been terrified that my years away would have made me a stranger. But 
the minute I stepped into my family's house, I was at home. Over countless 
cups of Turkish coffee, I asked every woman I met why she seemed not to 
give a damn about a resolution that is surely going to change women's lives 
for the worse. I was met with kind smiles and the same weary reply: it's 
not going to change a thing.

Ten months after their "liberation", Iraqi women have only just started to 
leave their houses to carry out ordinary tasks such as taking their kids to 
school, shopping or visiting neighbours. They do so despite the risk of 
kidnapping or worse. It is women and children who bear the brunt of the 
absence of law and order, the lack of security and the availability of weapons.

Ten months on, most women graduates are still unemployed. Seventy-two per 
cent of working Iraqi women were public employees, and the public sector is 
in tatters. Other workers are suffering too. My niece, Luma, is a 
biologist. She was unemployed during Saddam's era because she wasn't a 
member of the Ba'ath party. She is unemployed now because she refused to 
get a tazkia (a recommendation form) from one of the main political parties 
represented in the IGC.

As a housewife and a mother, her daily life, like that of most Iraqi women, 
follows the same tedious routine: get gas for the cooker (make sure the 
cylinder doesn't leak - gas explosions are not unusual); buy oil (make sure 
it's not mixed with water); buy petrol for the car (she will queue for 
three hours, but the men's queues are even longer so the task falls to her).

At the sound of special hooting many of Baghdad's women rush outdoors to 
pay the refuse collectors to collect the rubbish (in the heart of old 
Baghdad, rubbish piles as high as the buildings. Women and children search 
there for anything they can sell or eat).

The electricity supply hasn't improved in the past 10 months either, 
despite Paul Bremer's claims. In my family's house in Palestine Street, a 
middle-class area, the women have to deal with three different supply 
sources to get just 12 hours of power a day. The first source is the 
national grid, from which we receive electricity for two hours then are cut 
off for three (we're lucky - in al-Adhamia the on/off ratio is 2:4; 
residents there believe that they are being punished because they support 
the resistance). The second source is the local mosque, which acquired a 
generator during the looting and now supplies 100 houses with three hours 
of electricity per day. The third source is the house generator, which must 
be handled with special care. To add to the general misery, there is still 
no postal service in the country and no telephone services in most areas.

There has been no shortage of initiatives to "enlighten" Iraqi woman and 
encourage them to play an active role in the country's reconstruction. In 
one, the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office 
declared "the need, urgently, for a women's tent meeting in Baghdad with a 
declaration in compliance with 1325".

Patricia Hewitt tried to establish a high council for Iraqi women. 
Condoleezza Rice opened a centre for women's human rights in Diwanya. In 
her opening speech - delivered via satellite - she assured Iraqi women that 
"we are with you in spirit". It was attended by commanders and soldiers of 
the occupying forces, but by very few Iraqi women. Meanwhile in Diwanya 
itself, local farmers (many of them women) were unable to start the winter 
season because of unexploded cluster bombs on their land.

Iraqi political parties are also desperate to employ women to boost their 
own credibility. So why are Iraqi women not welcoming the chance to be a 
model for others in the Middle East?

Over countless coffees, the women explain. They are educated, resilient and 
survivors of atrocities of Saddam's regime. They replaced male workers 
during the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, and set up cottage industries 
to support their families during 13 years of brutal sanctions. They are not 
about to forgive the US or British governments for strengthening Saddam's 
regime, imposing sanctions, and destroying their cities in two wars. Iraqi 
women know that the occupation forces are in the country to guard their own 
interests, not those of the Iraqis.

In refusing to take part in any initiative by the US-led occupation, or its 
Iraqi allies, women are practising passive resistance. They adopted the 
same technique against Saddam's despised General Union of Iraqi women. 
Then, they managed to cause the collapse of one of the richest, most 
powerful institutions for women in the Middle East. Perhaps they will do so 
again.

· Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and painter. She is a former 
political prisoner of the Ba'ath regime

haifa_zangana at yahoo.co.uk
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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