KURDISTAN: Women to Women

‘Girls are forced to get married by their families at an early age, because once she goes to university and graduates, then her reputation is down the drain. She becomes expired,' explained Intisar Al-Maylie, branch head of the Iraqi Women League in the Najaf province, to a group of women at an Erbil conference. The conference, sponsored Swedish foundation Kvinna Till Kvinna, united female representatives and leaders of women's organizations from different areas of Iraq in discussions about the suffering of women in the country.

Najat Abdul-Hussein, head of Afaq in Kut, pointed to the lack of services, including water and electricity, as a major obstacle to women's development. Women agreed that women's rights cannot be achieved in a country where services are poor. Regarding women in the Kut area, Abdul-Hussein affirmed honor killings, but said ‘there are no statistics, because most of the time the family burns her and says she was burned by the stove; cases of rape are also emerging in Kut, but no one admits that it is a widely spread issue and remains unspoken.' She added: ‘Most of the time the bodies of women are not inspected carefully after death to determine the real cause of death.'

Al-Maylie, speaking with frustration regarding the condition of women, said Najaf is dominated by the Shia religion and all of the Shia Islamic parties originate from there; it is therefore a conservative area. Wearing a short-sleeved shirt and jeans, Al-Maylie says she would not dare dress that way in Najaf. ‘I wear a scarf of course and also the long Abaya covering my entire body.'
In Najaf, Al-Maylie's branch has a hearing and counseling center with a lawyer, social worker, and health consultant free of charge for female victims of violence. ‘In the one year's time the center has been in operation, we realized women of all classes--the educated, uneducated, housewives, and government employees are all prone to becoming victims of violence.'
She added that the main concern is that women themselves are not well educated and aware of their rights. Al-Maylie pointed out that everything from forced marriages to physical abuse exists in the area. ‘The trend now is for 13-year-olds to be married; by 16 the young girl is already a mother of three kids.' She blamed society and families who do not see the negative consequences of the decisions. ‘In return, this had resulted in approximately six divorces a day in Najaf alone.'

‘Temporary marriages in the name of Sharia have become a wide phenomenon,' continued Al-Maylie. Other women around the table agreed that the issue is out of control as they have witnessed in their different organizations. ‘Women basically get married sometime without any witnesses or papers to prove their marriages; sometimes it is just for a matter of four hours,' noted Abdul-Hussein. The women discussed the reason and blamed religious men who promote it as legal according to religion. ‘Once again religion is misinterpreted, resulting in more incidents of violence and cases where women are mistreated.'

Self burns, temporary marriages, sexual assaults in the work place all occur. But the women, insisting their names remain anonymous, said incest is now an issue behind house walls and no one risks bringing up the issue openly. ‘At the end of the day, it is the poor woman who is either killed or kills herself,' exclaimed one woman.

‘As Iraqi women, we must unite and have one voice so that we can be strong enough to change the existing situation,' remarked the dissatisfied but still hopeful Al-Maylie as she applauded the development of Kurdish women in the region. She said they (Kurdish women) have met many challenges, and they need to assist women in the central and southern areas of the country to also take large steps in decreasing the continuous violence.

The three-day conference, which included workshops and discussions, resulted in a report highlighting the challenges and recommendations for a five-year period in forming a women's movement in Iraq in which the major confrontations of women in the country begin to be tackled.

Marianne Erikson, former member of European Parliament, was one of the guest speakers in the conference who shared her experiences and the experiences of Swedish women. ‘Women here are not yet welcomed in politics,' said Erikson.
Referring to claims made during the discussion sessions about women in Parliament not being able to make their own decisions and in relation to the existing 25-percent quota for women in Iraqi Parliament, Erikson remarked, ‘I'm not afraid of quotas; there is no such thing as a stupid woman.