IRAQ: women alarmed at prospect of rights erosion, UNIFEM says

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/29df295421b6f8261cbd3b9b8f7e00d3.htm

DUBAI, 24 July (IRIN) - Iraqi women are extremely concerned that the national assembly committee drafting the country's new constitution is curbing women's rights, established under the interim constitution and prior national laws, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) reported on Friday.

"As the committee continues in its drafting process, women are becoming increasingly alarmed at what they see as a curtailing of their rights," UNIFEM said in a press statement.

Of particular concern to Iraqi women activists and civil society groups was a chapter of the constitution on duties and rights, which now refers to Shari'ah (Islamic law) as the "main source" for legislation in the new constitution, the UN body said.

In the earlier interim constitution, Shari'ah was referred to as an important source of legislation, rather than the main source.

[babylonsister]

1. And here's a plea for help from us:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=106x19894

[rodeodance]

2. Bush so often mentions all the freedoms to women--well..ummm.

[Rose Siding]

3. The cost to women's rights exemplifies the futility

...of the invasion of this particular country.

[grahamhgreen]

4. From another Iraq women's group...

Recieved in my email -

Women in Iraq need you
Condemn a Constitution of de-humanizing Women

An era of post-occupation atrocities unfolded to disclose the final chapter of human rights abuse in Iraq: A constitution of legalizing women’s discrimination.

The constitution draft which was circulated secretly eliminated the minimal rights women had under the previous 1959 “Personal Status Law”. Although this law was partly based on Islamic Shariaa, it included much reform that secured minimal standards of human rights for women, such as preventing marriage for female children and making polygamy more difficult for men – a practice that is allowed under Shariaa in addition to beatings, stoning, flogging and forced veiling.

The draft constitution indicates in its article 14 the elimination of the current law and refers family laws completely to Islamic Shariaa and to other religions in Iraq. In other words, it leaves women vulnerable to all inequalities and social hostility in addition to designating females as second rate citizens or semi-humans.

Since the beginning of the occupation, the US administration has recognized Iraqis according to their ethnic/nationalist and religious identities. This predetermined polarization of the society around its most reactionary forces has resulted with a most lethal weapon which is a government of division and inequality - a potential timed bomb for a civil war that has already started. Furthermore, the only mutual agenda for the parties in power is one of oppression, bigotry and misogyny in addition to representing the US occupation interests.

The enemies of the people seated in the panel of writing the constitution have decided to give life to resolution 137. This resolution isolates Iraqis from the modern world and turns Iraq into an Afghanistan under Taliban where oppression and discrimination of women is institutionalized under Shariaa.

We have witnessed stages and kinds of atrocities under this occupation. The time comes for the US occupation to leave an unprecedented hallmark of abusing human rights by forcing a constitution that turns 13 million women into semi-humans.
We need your support in rejecting a constitution that gives way to decades of silent massacres against women.

Let the freedom loving people of the US know what is being committed in their name and in the name of democracy.

Write open letters to the US administration, to its allies, and especially to the UN. Remind them that women’s rights cannot be the price for a hideous democracy of racism, ethnicity, religiosity, sectsrianism and misogyny.
Help us find a way out of the never ending attack on our freedoms and lives.

Yanar Mohammed
Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq
23 July 2005

Email :[e-mail]- Mobile 1: 00 44 7890 065933- Mobile2: 00 44 795688 3001
Bank account : Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq- HSBC Bank (UK- London) Sort Code: 40-06-03 - Bank account No: 91429574- Website: www.equalityiniraq.com

Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq
منظــمة حــرية المــرأة في العـــراق
Al- Fardawse Square Area – Al Za’im Street – Next to Al Saadoun Private Hospital - Tel no. 011 964 1 7170953
العراق- بغداد قرب ساحة الفردوس- شارع الزعيم – جوار مستشفى السعدون الأهلي