Iraq : Women - the victims of war & Islamisation
 

Across the country, particularly in strongholds of the majority Shiite Islamic sect like Najaf and Karbala, calls are rising for Iraq to become an Islamic state. That would mean that the sharia would be implemented, as it has been in many nations, significantly curtailing women's basic human rights. 

The modern Iraqi woman has long made the country stand apart from its Arab neighbors in the area of practicing some of their minimal human rights. For decades, Iraqi women - at least those living in Baghdad and other big cities -- have had a degree of personal freedom. They can drive and attend coeducational college classes. They can work outside the home in offices where men work as well. Women make up a large proportion of Iraq's professionals -- doctors, lawyers, engineers, college professors, bank directors, and faculty deans. Many are free to choose whom, or even whether, to marry. 

But they became transformed by the country's shift in recent years toward Islamisation and backward traditions - a trend partly orchestrated by Saddam Hussein's government. Society has been changed from the Gulf War (in 1991) to now. War and U.N. sanctions, rapidly destroyed the situation. Previously available public services such as free transportation to work; school and child-care facilities have disappeared, forcing women to return to the home. Now the message is that the real and only role of women is to be mother and housewife, and they shouldn't be outside. The change dramatically accelerated by Saddam Hussein's turn toward Islam since 1994, a move that many observers viewed as a calculated attempt to shore up his domestic power base. Polygamy was legalized. High schools were ordered to be segregated by sex. Women were barred from traveling abroad unless they were accompanied by a male relative or are aged over 45. In addition, a 1990 law removed most penalties for so-called honour killings, in which women who were suspected of sexual misconduct are killed by their husbands, brothers or fathers to save the "honour" of the family. This traditional practice has since become more common. But for all the regressive steps, a recent study of Arab nations by the U.N. Development Program found that: 

•  Iraqi law still mandates equal rights for women in many areas, such as employment and education. 
•  Women get six months' paid maternity leave and can opt for six more months in unpaid leave. 
•  Iraq's divorce law, while still favoring the husband's interests, is the most balanced in the Arab World and requires the husband to repay his wife's dowry. 

As the US government invaded Iraq, many women were wondering what would happen to their status after a "regime change". Without doubt, Iraqi women have lost their most basic rights But there is a growing sense that the power vacuum left by Saddam's fall will probably be filled, in large measure, by Islamic political figures who seek to impose the backward Islamic social mores that are typical in Iraq's south.