Volume 6 number 4, April 2004 The Desperate Plight of Iraqi Women under U.S. Occupation Baghdad, April 9 She only agreed to tell me her story on condition of anonymity. The young Iraqi woman speaking quietly with me fears for her life daily. She began working as a translator for a journalist in Baghdad four months ago. Three weeks ago her husband received a call from some men who threatened her because of the work she was doing. They told her husband that she would be kidnapped, tortured, and killed if she continued working with foreigners as a translator. She asked her husband to forget about it, to just hang up when they called. The men called again a week later and said they were being paid to do this. They told her husband that if he would pay them more than they were already being paid, they would leave his wife alone. They wanted five million Iraq Dinar ($3,500), which is an enormous amount of money in Iraq today, where the economy lies in ruins and unemployment is around sixty percent. She needs the work, as she, her husband, and children will be unable to survive if she quits working. She explains, “We need the money. This is the only chance I have. There is no employment anywhere now in Baghdad. So either I become a beggar, or I become a translator.” Now she is considering paying the men who call, thinking of asking if they will take less money. She looks at me somberly and says, “It is dangerous just to leave my home. I get scared every time a car passes close to me, because they might kidnap me. When I ride the mini-bus I am scared because I worry that anyone on it might kidnap me.” They still call and threaten her each week. She tries to be brave, and asks her husband to turn off the phone when they call. She says, “They want to force me to get rid of this job, and stay with all of my children in one room. But this will never work. I would give them the money if I had it…but I don’t. So I just keep going on, either that or just give up. For me, I will go on.” For on this day, April 9—the date Baghdad fell to the Americans—most Iraqi women are far worse off than they were before the invasion. The upsurge of violence against women here has prevented many from even going outside of their homes, despite the need for food and water. According to Yifat Susskind, associate director of MADRE, a women’s rights organization, “It is estimated that more than 400 Iraqi women were abducted and raped within the first four months of the U.S. occupation of Iraq…there has been a sharp rise in abduction, rape, and sexual slavery…the rapes have triggered an increase in ‘honor killings,’ in which male relatives murder rape survivors because the attack has ‘shamed’ the family.” She also writes, “In many areas, Islamic militants now patrol the streets, beating and harassing women who are not ‘properly’ dressed or behaved.” There are several villages now, mostly in southern Iraq, where women are wearing full burkas like they do in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Azma is twenty-nine years old and also works as a translator for foreigners. She is both frightened and appalled at the situation the women of Iraq find themselves in today under the US occupation. She angrily says, “Women are being forced to wear the hijab. This is the most disgusting thing. This actually makes me feel brave, with more courage to insist on what we have to do now. Because if we give in to this, it will be an even bigger problem because they will increase this problem.” What has the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) done to improve this horrendous situation? According to Susskind, “The CPA appointed only three women to the twenty-five-member Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). No women were appointed to the committee assembled by the US Justice Department to create a new court system in Iraq. Only one woman was named to the twenty-five-member interim Cabinet.” It can best be summed up by a statement from a high-ranking CPA official, who, when asked by a reporter about the new threats to women’s rights under the US occupation, replied, “We don’t do women.” I ask Azma what she thinks will happen to the women of Iraq. She replies, “I think the future will only be worse for us here. Because we have all these stupid people as leaders, people who want Sharia Law, people who enforce these crazy rules.” I ask her if there has been anything beneficial for Iraqi women since the US invaded her country and removed Saddam Hussein. “We thought that we could get freedom. But we got what? Being forced to stay at home. The freedom we got is that we are free to stay inside our houses now.” For more information on MADRE, go to www.madre.org. | ||
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