The situation and struggle of Women in Kurdistan!

Sakar Ahmad is a women’s rights activist, and editor of ‘Equality’ in Kurdish.  This is a leading newspaper of the radical women’s movements, and the official paper of IWO. She is also a member of Iraqi Women’s Rights Coalition, and wrote this article about the Kurdish women’s situation, and their struggle, for Equal Rights Now!

The women’s movement in Kurdistan in general was part of the women’s movement in Iraq before the 90s. At one time during the struggle they were challenging the central government, which has dictated to people for more than thirty years. The Ba’ath regime was like any other national-Islamic group.

The Dictator was not taking women’s rights into consideration as human rights, and was in fact ignoring women’s rights.  This was supported by the Ba'ath regime and others. It was very obvious in terms of political, economic, social, and legal rights. The best example of the violation of women’s rights and not being equal to men comes from Islam.  This is the official religion of the state and the laws, and rules of the country were based on Islamic Sharia law, which is highly discriminative against women. The lack of rights, and treating women as second-class citizens could be clearly seen in the personal status law. In this law we can see many articles and decrees that discriminate against women, and consider woman to be dependent on men, a commodity.

These kinds of laws, and rules resulted in maintaining the most reactionary values, and anti- women behaviours, a backward attitude towards women. Women were killed to protect the “honour” of the family, there were polygamous marriages for men, women were made to be very dependent on men, and there were many other sufferings of women in this society. Due to the situation in Iraq and in the world, the radical movements were effective in putting pressure on a number of religious and nationalist regimes, one after the other, to bring about some reforms in terms of women’s rights. It is cleat that Kurdish women’s movements were part of a wider women’s movement in Iraq.

Uncertainty and chaos was created in Kurdistan by the changes in the political situation in Iraq after the first Gulf war, by America’s pursuance of a New World Order, also due to the uprising in the Northern part of Iraq which removed it from the Ba’ath regimes authority, and due to the impositions of a group of nationalist, religious, and tribal parties in Kurdistan.

The continuation of sanctions for ten years encouraged reactionary movements and the lack of a secular and modern state.  It enforced the same laws and rules which were used by the Ba’ath regime creating more problems and violations of women’s rights.  There were more attacks on women’s rights and freedoms because of the rebirth of the most reactionary and backward attitudes, and values towards women. The killings of women, forced marriages and forcing of women back to their homes have become the norm in Kurdistan. The lack of basic rights, civil and individual rights, the killing of women in daylight and in the knowledge of the Kurdish authorities has lead to the loss of the lives of many thousands of women in the last 11 years in Kurdistan. The statistics, which have been collected mainly by Independent Women’s Organization, are the best examples of these dark realities.  Some of these statistics were collected from other women’s organisations and other institutions, such as hospitals. Women’s killings, suicide, and violation of their rights have become a social phenomenon, not only in Kurdistan. Most of the women’s organisations and human rights organisations condemned those laws that allow killings and the violations of women rights in Kurdistan.

All this pressure on the Kurdish authorities made the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, (PUK), and Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) the two major nationalist parties to make some changes in the laws.

Despite the lack of rights and protection of women in Kurdistan, women’s organisations and movements existed, and they continue to struggle for the recognition of unconditional equality between women and men in all spheres of life. The Independent Women’s Organization was a leading figure in this struggle. We have held many seminars, and conferences in relation to women, and raised public awareness.  We also saved many lives of women who were victims of domestic violence. We have gathered information and statistics to present to international women’s rights organizations to gather support for our struggle.

Our organization IWO is known as part of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq that was established on 22/06/2033.  The activists across Iraq are working together as one big Iraqi women’s organization to achieve unconditional equal rights, and to establish an egalitarian society.

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