BAGHDAD — Two years after the invasion
of Iraq and just weeks before the country’s first free
election, Amina began wearing a headscarf for the first time in her
life. Her father insisted.
“I don’t like this — and I
don’t see the danger. No one ever bothered me before,”
Amina says, sitting in her office located in the predominantly
Shiite neighborhood of Khadimiya, her long brown hair streaming
down her back.
At first, the 27-year-old professor at the
engineering college resisted, arguing that her students will lose respect for her for caving in
to fundamentalists. But her father would not be moved: Amina
didn’t have a choice; the extremists were far too dangerous to be
defied.
She is already making plans to leave the
country to pursue a Ph.D. in Europe.
Life wasn’t always this dangerous for
women like Amina. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a secular country
where women could freely walk the busy streets without a scarf or a
male escort, and stay out late at outdoor cafés with their families, sometimes until two or three in the
morning. While women suffered as much as any other Iraqi under
Saddam’s tyranny, Baathist laws were noteworthy for their
commitment to gender equality. Unlike their peers in the Arab world,
Iraqi women enjoyed equal employment and educational opportunities and
equal pay.
But the U.S. invasion two years ago this month
changed everything. With the departure of Saddam, women became a
target for both fundamentalist Islamists and U.S. soldiers.
According to a new report released by Amnesty International late last
month, “Women and girls in Iraq live in fear of violence as the
conflict intensifies and insecurity spirals.”
The fear of armed groups who terrorize anyone
who defies their religious edicts has made many Iraqi women
prisoners within their own home. “The lawlessness and
increased killings, abductions and rapes that followed the
overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein have restricted
women’s freedom of movement and their ability to go to
school or to work,” the human rights organization
reports.
Then there is the added threat of abuse posed
by U.S. soldiers: “Women have been subjected to sexual
threats by members of the U.S.-led forces and some women detained
by U.S. forces have been sexually abused, possibly raped.”
With the Shiite victory in the January
elections, the future for Iraqi women looks no less bleak. Shiites
make up 60 percent of Iraq’s population and consider Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as their spiritual leader. Their electoral
triumph underscored and legitimized the Shiite majority’s
immense political power, and will ensure a dominant role in
crafting the future Iraqi constitution. While many Shiites say they
don’t support a theocratic state and Sistani has proven to be
a moderate leader, women’s rights activists like Yanar
Mohammed are less optimistic.
“Shiite political groups want to impose
Islamic sharia and let it override the civil code that we’ve
had for 30 years. This will turn women not into second-class
citizens but into third- and fourth-class citizens,” says
Mohammed, who heads the Organization of Women’s Freedom in
Iraq, which opened the first domestic violence shelter for women
escaping abuse or “honor killings” from their families.
“In other words, the thief will have the
hand cut off, the criminal will be beheaded and women will be
stoned to death. Divorce will not be a woman’s right,”
she says. Whereas Baathist laws prohibited a woman under 18 from
marrying, Islamic law imposes no such minimum age of consent.
Mohammed points out that without such protection a girl who is six
can be married to a 70-year-old man, who is also free to have four
wives.
“This is a dark page in the history of
Iraq. Women are being kidnapped, there is trafficking, and now it
will be written into the constitution that we will be denied equal
rights.”
Mohammed worries that a large number of the
seats set aside for women (25 percent) in the National Assembly
will be filled by members handpicked by the Islamic parties —
women who embrace the religious edicts of the leadership.
To offset this threat, she is working on
bringing together a secular coalition of educated, professional
women and members of other political parties. They often meet in
her office in a small and well-hidden residential house located off
a side street in downtown Baghdad. The doors are guarded and the
entry obscured. Security is important for any woman who intends to
take on the fundamentalists, especially Mohammed, who always
travels with two armed bodyguards.
Not all Iraqi women are as unhappy with the
Shiite victory in the elections as Mohammed.
Samira Hillmi, a 57-year-old educator in Iraq,
willingly shrouds herself from head to toe in black as she strolls
through a crowded market-place in Baghdad. She wears her veil as a
choice, she says, for God, and it is to Him she is grateful for the
recent turn of events.
“The election was so good. Finally we
will move forward now that the Shiites are no longer under the foot
of Saddam,” she says. Hillmi is not too worried about the
possibility of the leadership establishing a theocratic state
similar to Iran: “No, it will be OK. What we need is just for
Iraq to be safe.”
Like Hillmi, most Iraqi men are not very
worried about the threat of fundamentalism. “I wouldn’t
be forced to wear an abaya,” says Esam Pasha, a 29-year old
artist. Pasha is confident that he will find ways to express his
art under an Islamic regime — much in the same way as he did
under Saddam. Besides, he is sure that the United States will not
let his country become Islamic, regardless of the sovereign status
of Iraq. “Donald Rumsfeld says Iraq can choose any system we
want as long as it isn’t Islamic or Communist. That’s
the democracy we’re allowed,” he says sarcastically.
While those who fear Islamic fundamentalism
may also resent the occupation, they are counting on the U.S.
presence — however despised by many Iraqis — to keep
the extremists at bay. “No, they cannot leave,” Amina
says. “The Taliban would be here in two days.”
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2005.
