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Iraqi
Kurdish Women Voice Hopes for Constitution
April 25, 2006 -(WOMENSENEWS) For the last several months, civil society
and women's rights groups in Iraqi Kurdistan have been contributing
to the drafting of a regional constitution that some hope will be
better for women than the national version.
In a bookcase in her Parliament office in Irbil, Pakhshan Zangana
is collecting hundreds of documents, letters and lists of recommendations
for the Iraqi Kurdistan constitution.
Civil society and women's organizations have sent her their suggestions
since the summer of 2005, when the drafting process for the regional
constitution began. Negotiations continue as the Iraqi government--now
emerging from a four-month deadlock to select Jawad Maliki as prime
minister--establishes itself in Baghdad.
Under Iraq's constitution, the Kurdish regional constitution will
take precedence in most areas of disagreement but it is widely expected
that constitutional courts will have to iron out the differences.
The regional constitution is being debated by a 20-member constitutional
committee, but hasn't been reviewed publicly.
The national constitution was accepted in a national referendum last
October but remains unratified because of internal turmoil. Once the
government forms it will have four months to modify the constitution.
One key difference between the two documents is that the national
constitution establishes Islam as a basic source of legislation, while
the regional draft does not.
"There's nothing about that in the Kurdistan constitution,"
says Zangana, a member of the Communist Party and the only woman on
the constitutional committee. The regional constitution, she says,
safeguards "the Islamic identity of the people of Kurdistan"
but refers to the religious freedoms of all other groups.
The 59-year-old Zangana, however, is careful to add that the Kurdish
regional constitution is respectful of religious beliefs and traditional
society. "There is nothing that contradicts Islam," she
says.
Iraqi Kurdistan is composed of three northern governorates that have
been operating semi-autonomously since the Gulf War; they exert considerable
control over their security, borders, economy, trade and law.
When stability deteriorated in much of the rest of the country after
the 2003 U.S. invasion, the northern region bloomed. It developed
billion-dollar infrastructure projects, attracted foreign business
and upheld its reputation as the most stable and advanced area in
Iraq.
Against Rights and Democracy
Zangana says that using Islam as a legislative source is "basically
against women's rights and democracy."
Not all agree. Sabriya Ghafar Rahman is a regional Parliament member
and founding member of the women's organization of the Kurdistan Islamic
Union, the third largest political party in the region, which promotes
an Islamic basis for legislation. She says the idea that Islam is
bad for women is based on misinterpretations of Islamic law.
Advocates of women's equality "believe women should go to work
like men, that women should have political, financial and social positions
like men," says Rahman, who is also a working mother. "I
don't think this is a woman's duty." Although she supports equality
of opportunity between men and women, she says she is afraid that
secularism will go too far and that women will neglect their duties
as mothers and wives.
Mehabad Qeredaxi, advisor on equality issues in the office of the
Kurdish prime minister, Nicervan Barzani, takes Zangana's view. "The
current constitution of Iraq is flawed against women's rights and
it is based on religion and tradition," she says. "If we
can enshrine the equality principal in the constitution then we can
prevent any violation against women's rights. If we can't do that
in the Iraqi constitution then we hope we will be able to have it
in the Kurdistan constitution."
Personal Status Law
The regional draft also deals differently with the law that many say
is most relevant to women: the personal status law pertaining to divorce,
marriage and inheritance.
Article 39 of the national constitution says the personal status law
should be applied according to one's religion. This means, for example,
that Shiites--about 60 percent of Iraq's 27 million inhabitants--would
rely on one court system while the Chaldo-Assyrians--Christians of
several denominations who make up less than 2 percent of the population--would
use another. But the constitution does not explain it in detail. In
a society where sectarianism often transgresses family makeup, Zangana
says this is troubling.
"It would lead to the breakup of family and of society where
there are different laws that apply to different people," says
Zangana, referring to article 39.
The drafting committee for Iraqi Kurdistan, by contrast, is leaning
toward having one personal status law that can be applied to all regardless
of religion. They would work with a version of the law that existed
during Saddam Hussein's rule.
Despite her own secular position, Zangana takes a moderate stance
on the regional draft.
Religion, she says, must be incorporated in the regional constitution
if it is to be accepted by Parliament and the public.
"According to the tradition and religion in our society, women
are like the weak element," Zangana says. Customs and beliefs
are, at best, apologetic and protective of women. She is helping to
change this, but she adds, "The hardest thing in our struggle
is the distance between our ambition and the reality." "The
role of the constitution and of the activists is to prepare the society
to accept these things gradually," she says.
Bill of Rights for Women
Chilura Hardi, head of the Khatuzeen Center for Social Action, Women's
NGO, presented the Kurdistan constitutional committee with a Bill
of Rights for Women in February. It was drafted by about 70 participants,
most of whom were women representing different organizations and parts
of the region. Some men also participated and offered legal advice.
The document is partially based on the Rights of Women in Africa adopted
by the African Union in 2003 and the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women adopted in 1979 by the
United Nations General Assembly.
"We took all the things we wanted (from those documents) to express
them in a Kurdish way," making sure to eliminate the parts about
abortion and homosexuality that are not appropriate to the society,
says Hardi. While abortion and homosexuality are not illegal in the
region, they are subject to strong social and religious taboos.
The bill of rights bans female genital mutilation, polygamy and the
giving of women as brides to reconcile families in conflict. Polygamy
is not uncommon here and female genital mutilation has been reported
in the more rural areas of the region.
Representatives of Islamic parties have been excluded from the meetings
on the bill of rights. The manifesto has little chance of being passed
in Parliament and has served mainly as a vehicle for some women to
express themselves, one organizer said on condition of anonymity.
"We knew they would be completely against what we are doing,"
the organizer said. "The one way to do it is to keep them out.
They'll have their say in the Parliament anyway."
From: http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2717
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