Interview with Layla Mohamad about her journey to Iraq:

Layla Mohamed: a women’s rights activist from Iraq, living in Australia since 1998. She chairs the Iraqi Women Association in Sydney. She took an active part in the “Committee in Defence of Iraqi Women’s Rights” in Sydney, she holds many seminars, and has taken part in women’s conferences in Australia. She has been interviewed by many members of the Arabic and English press. She launched many campaigns i.e. to defend ex-Independent Women Organisation based in Kurdistan Iraq, to reopen the women’s safe Shelter in Kurdistan, to stop beheading sex workers in Iraq 2000. Layla Mohamad joined the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq when it started in June 2003, and she is also a member of the Iraqi Women’s Rights Coalition.

ERN:  You are planning to go to Iraq, what you are planning to do there?

Layla Mohamad: As you know women in Iraq have suffered for 35 years under Saddam’s regime. The regime issued many codes and decrees which violated women’s rights, for example that killing women is not crime. They use brutal ways to execute women in Iraq. Because of this, women face daily violations of their social, legal and political rights, which takes women back to the middle ages, the dark ages.

I was forced to leave Iraq because of these conditions. Once I reached Australia I started a new stage in my struggle to support women in Iraq. I joined the Committee in Defence of Iraqi Women’s Rights to make Iraqi women’s voices and demands heard by the international community and to get international support to end violations of Iraqi women’s rights. Since then I have been involved in many actions to defend women’s rights in Iraq.

At this time, establishing the Organisation for Women’s Freedom is a continuation of our work abroad in the last years, it is the fruit of we Iraqi women’s rights activists who left Iraq because of the dictatorship and who now are returning to do our work in Iraq. I will be working with co-activists to organise and empower women in Iraq to get their equal rights. We have a lot to do on our agenda. Veiling is being imposed on women, rape and killing is common, Islamic courts have now begun which means the impostition of Islamic laws.  There are many other issues which needs a lot of women and men working together, and many resources.Our concern is that Iraqi women could be entering a new stage in society.

ERN: It has been said that women who are returning from abroad are carrying Western values and ideas which are not suitable for Iraqi society. Comment on that please.

Layla: Civil values and equality are human values, not Western nor Eastern values.  It is not just women’s demands but these are supported by men. Iraq is a civil society, we saw that Iraqi soceity has been and is a modern society, but it has been suppress by a most reactionary regime, in a time when you couldn’t speak about women’s rights, nor human rights. Look at the situation now in Iraq.  You see that rape is happening every day, and there is kidnapping of girls and women who go to schools and university. The families insisted that their girls should go to school, and so they have found new ways to protect their girls’ education. Iraqi people are civilised and interested in educating their female members. They consider education is a given right for everybody, girls and boys. The families accompanied their girls to and from schools, and many male members waited in the doors of schools until their daughters and sisters had finished their exams in June and July. They formed groups of parents to guard the school during school time. These rights should be recongnised as a basic rights. However, even in the West women have achieved many demands, but still they are fighting to improve their lives.  We are women in the West and East. We want to end any kind of violence against women, whether this violence was established in law, by governmental bodies, in the culture as we see in Iraq, or by individual perpetrators. In short, I have to confirm that this allegation that “women’s rights are Western values and do not suit women in Iraq” comes from Islamic and nationalist groups rather than from Iraqi people.  Those groups have an interest in keeping women as second class citizens, and it is our task to expose this.

ERN: You have left behind a 10 year old daughter, as a mother how could manage to travel and do your activities?

Layla: My husband is one of the defenders of women’s rights.  He helped me in my work to defend women’s rights. I have been in different places and he took responsibility for our daugther.  This time is the same, he offered me full support and assured me that he will take care of my dauther so I could do my work.

ERN: If there is anything else you want to say to our readers?

Layla: First of all I would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Maggie Black who sponsored my journy to Baghdad. I would like to say that our movent in Iraq is just beginning. The voilations happen every day. Our task is enormous, we are facing huge challenges, starting with the occupation, and the emergence of Islamic groups in Iraqi cities. We have many obstacles that should be dealth with. I believe strongly that with the support of women’s rights organsiations, and their press, their activities could help us to promote women’s rights in Iraq.