Iraq: Women forced to give up their jobs, marriages

[Barrett808]

Source: IRIN

BAGHDAD, 30 May 2007 (IRIN) - When Suha Abdel-Azim, 38, received a letter from her boss saying she had to stop working for security reasons, she couldn't believe it. After three years as an engineer for a local company, she was fired without compensation.

"I was shocked when they told me I was being fired. I was an excellent worker and had done many fantastic and profitable projects but they didn't want a woman with them any more. They tried to explain, saying it was too dangerous for the company to employ women: the company had received threats," Suha said.

"I tried to convince them that I could work from home. I have two children to bring up, and have been alone since my husband was killed by insurgents in 2004 for working for a foreign company, but in vain. They just sent me home," she said.

Suha is now unemployed. She has been trying to find a job but as a woman she is finding it difficult.

"When they see my cv they get excited but later they say they cannot employ me because I'm a woman and it could be too dangerous for them. Most of the local construction companies in Iraq now have only men working for them," she said.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/4a66b6c2d010e2842304ea70ed6e0877.htm

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Iraqi women as refugees in Syria are turning to prostitution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/world/middleeast/29syria.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[barb162]

2. Threats are coming from the Muslim sharia fanatics

They just can't handle women being equal.

[Samurai_Writer]

3. Sounds like the scene in The Handmaid's Tale

The one where Offred, before she became a handmaid, was at work. Her male boss comes in, gathers all the women in a conference room, and tells them they are all fired, and to go home. Women are no longer allowed to work, own property, or have bank accounts. The same day all the women are fired, their property and bank accounts are transferred into their husband's name only, if they have one. if not, the property and money is confiscated by the state. They don't care if these women starve to death. Same here.

[magellan]

4. Nothing new

Riverbend lost her job for precisely the same reasons, just a few months after the US occupation began. That same year she began blogging about how families were being torn apart -- mixed Shia/Sunni families, as many in Iraq are (including her own). Husbands and wives forced to separate, women intimidated out of work and driving and school and into hijab and housebound life. All under the watchful eye of the US occupation and Coalition Provisional Authority, which never lifted a finger to stop the fanatical thugs taking over the streets and lives of the Iraqis.

Until it became convenient to acknowledge their presence.

[tanyev]

5. Ain't democracy grand?

:sarcasm:

[HughBeaumont]

6. It's more like this:

[Orsino]

7. But business is booming for the male thugs...

...who enforce dress codes.

[slipslidingaway]

8. K&R n/t

[arewenotdemo]

9. "husband was killed by insurgents in 2004 for working for a foreign company"

So he was a collaborator. The reporter should have asked her if the money was worth it.

[rodeodance]

10. get Laura on this!!

[fortyfeetunder]

11. Bring her to the US!

after all thanks to "Iraqi Freedom" it liberated her from employment.... :grr:

[Toots]

12. I for one am not glad Saddam is gone

He would never have tolerated this. Women were treated as complete equals under Saddam as was all Religion. There were no Muslim extremist in Iraq. Saddam would not tolerate them..Iraq was the most Westernized country in the Mid East and most people had very good educations and good jobs. For five years now the exact opposite is occuring. But we will steal their oil so I guess it is all worth it. Americans are superior people and deserve all the worlds resources before any other people, just ask any Republican..