Iraq: no country for women

[sabra]

Source: middle-east-online

Post-invasion Iraq shows broad disempowerment for women who in Saddam-era comprised 40% of public sector workers.

MADRID - The improved political representation of women in Iraq is in sharp contrast to their broader disempowerment, as highlighted by the persistence of domestic violence and early marriage, according to a new report by the UN Inter-Agency Information and Analysis Unit.

Women may hold 25 percent of seats in the Iraqi parliament, but one in five in the 15-49 age group has suffered physical violence at the hands of her husband. Anecdotal evidence alleges that “many women are being kidnapped and sold into prostitution”, and female genital mutilation is still common in the north, the report notes.

“The situation many Iraqi women and girls face is beyond words,” journalist Eman Khammas told IRIN in a telephone interview. “Before, I was a journalist, a professional; now, I am nothing.”

Khammas noted an underlying political climate of intolerance that has become increasingly poisonous for women. She was forced to flee Iraq after receiving death threats that effectively stopped her - like thousands of other Iraqi women - from working. She now lives in Spain.

Read more: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=42776

[Autumn]

1. Ingrates, we gave them freedom,

what more do they want.:sarcasm: Thank you Bush, and thank you Obama, for continuing this.

[happygoluckytoyou]

2. no... please... no--- really... no... don't thank us... no... please ... it was our pleasure...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. Could not the same be said of any islamic nation?

Under islam, many civil rights are suppressed and especially so for women.

[14thColony]

4. That being the key difference

Under Hussein, Iraq was far more secular -- a nation made up of Muslims as opposed to a Muslim nation -- and he didn't give a crap about religion personally, all of which conspired to put women in pre-2003 Iraq in a pretty enviable position vis-a-vis the rest of the "Muslim World," with the possible exception of Turkey (another nation of Muslims and not a Muslim nation).

And no, I'm not saying this made S. Hussein, Esq. a great guy. But for whatever reason his rule was a pretty good time for women in Iraq, at least the Sunni ones.