The Muslim Woman

Women for Women International (WFWI) is an organization, which a young Iraqi American woman, Zainab Salbi, started in 1992 to help women in conflict zones, recover their lives. It played an active role in serving the women victims of war in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina. Presently, it’s pulsating in nine countries by working as a panacea for women and their families especially in the war prone regions. From the time of 2002, the WFWI has trained round about 9,000 women in job skills in Afghanistan. According to Salbi, the women require some financial stability, which’ll make them independent, ‘decision maker of their families and community and voting’ and mend their fractured families. For instance, Pashtoon, who lost her husband in 1992, had nothing to rely on with but then WFWI stepped forward and trained her as a beautician. Now she is looking after her family independently, bearing her orphaned grandson not only this, she’s also counted among the entrepreneurs of Afghanistan. The WFWI program director, Pat Morris, who lately tripped to Afghanistan, said that Afghan women see optimistic changes. The inclusion of men into the program is one of the major approaches of the WFWI as Morris admits that positive changes come when women and men would perform certain duties in ‘partnership’. The WFWI imparts training to its women folk in the field of beautician, jewelry making and tailoring. They also happen to open bakeries and make shoes and purses at home. Salbi revealed that working in Taliban is a bit tough job as some provinces has negative impact on women like drug trafficking. The U.S. government is worried as regards to the increase in drug trafficking, and addresses it through a USAID program that assists Afghan women through micro financing. Image Read

Finally, there’s relief for Muslim women, a new nikahnaama has come up that’ll significantly empower the Shia women. According to this new nikahnaama, the women would be able to initiate divorce, which was forbidden previously in Islam. In addition to it, the Shia women have now acquired the right to know about their husband’s income and details about his respective occupation. Now their husbands cannot even stop them from working after marriage neither they can demand any dowry. Moreover, she can also sue her husband if she: 1. is manhandled by her 2. hasn’t seen him for two years 3. if his personal details after marriage proves to be false The member of All India Shia Personal Law Board, Maulana Mirza Mohammad Athar said, ‘According to Allah, the right of divorce lies with the husband. But Islam also accepts it when under special circumstances, the husband delegates the right of divorce to the wife.’ He further added, ‘Women have many rights in Islam. But so far these have not been presented to the people.’ Ayatullah Siastani, the honored cleric of Najaf in Iraq has already given a green signal to this nikahnaama. Read

On eleventh of December, UNICEF’s Iraq Office said that Iraqi women need imperative action to defend and uphold their rights. Iraq is a society that has traditionally celebrated and empowered women. However, today’s Iraqi women and girls are living in uniquely challenging times. Their rights in the home, school, workplace and political sphere are under threat. UNICEF delegate for Iraq, Roger Wright said, ‘Women should be equal partners in the future of Iraq, but their rights risk slipping away without positive action to protect them. Now more than ever, equal participation for women is fundamental to Iraq’s recovery’. The five most critical issues faced by the native women folk, which they have to take into account as given by UNICEF are as follows: 1. Since the bloodshed has left many homes without the sole bread earner, so the women have to face many hardships. Pushed to desperation, many women are hooking on to charity organizations to care for themselves and their children. 2. As the on going threats to girls, attending school is on rise so more and more families are being forced to choose between education and safety for their daughters. 3. The health of the women is also a declining factor that is because of poverty and wretched health care services. 4. Girls and women are living a miserable life because of ‘honor killing’ and ‘convenience marriages’. 5. Women’s representation in Iraq’s government is still excessively low accounting to only 25 %. However, in the coming years, UNICEF will support the Iraqi government to take three key steps for women: 1.amplifying national resources to improve services for women and children 2. initiating laws to safeguard women’s basic legal and social rights 3. encouraging women’s partaking in local and national decision-making Image Read

Taha Barwary, Kurdistan Regional Government Minister for Sport and Youth, declared on 26th of last month that his ministry would give incentive to those who take a stand against women violence. He further said that the award would be given yearly to an organization or person in the Kurdistan Region or the Diaspora that effectively campaigned to end violence against women. He added that the Ministry for Sport and Youth (MOSY) would also support awareness-raising publications, films and documentaries. The forum was attended by spokespersons of women’s organizations, NGOs and other civil society groups. Image Read

Lately, the Women’s Freedom Organization of Iraq has put forward an astounding report which projects the growing practice of public executions of women by Shiite militias. One such ghastly incident of lynching has come to the fore, where a young woman was dragged by a wire wound around her neck to a close by soccer field and hung from the goal post. Then they perforated her body with bullets. Her brother rushed to defend her but unfortunately he was shot dead too. According to the members of Organization of Women’s Freedom, nearly 30 women are put to death monthly for honor-related reasons. It further stated that in comparison with the present situation, Iraqi women are worse off than they were under the Baathist regime in a country where, the women enjoyed some freedom and rights, which were not destined to women of the Middle East. Lamenting before the scenario, they said that before the invasion of the US, the condition of native women were not so deplorable in fact, they were given certain privileges. However, the status of women changed after the incursion. The United States gave prominence to a new group of leaders, most of who were associated with ultraconservative Shiite clerics. Among the Sunni minority, Continue reading “Iraq: Growing practice of women executions by Shiite militias” »

Violence in Iraq has escalated refugee crises, which is also creating instability in the province. The dislodged women, children and youth are becoming more susceptible to exploitation and abuse. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, tens of thousands of Iraqis are fleeing the country every month and majority of the displaced are women and children. Carolyn Makinson, executive director of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children asserted, ‘the rampant insecurity within Iraq and the lack of humanitarian assistance in neighboring countries, puts women and children at great risk of abuse. There are already reports of Iraqi women and young girls forced into prostitution or sex to survive and children forced into labor and other forms of exploitation’. Syria and Jordan are apparently, becoming inundated with the influx of refugees and so have placed certain restrictions on the services provided to them. Education for children is becoming a major cause, firstly, because of the lack of accommodation and secondly, the high affordable prices of private schools. Syria allows Iraqi refugee children to attend public school but families often cannot afford the supplies and school uniforms their children need. Scores of refugee families are experiencing financial crunch. Generally, they cannot legally work and have no way to support themselves and their families. Women who cannot provide for their families are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. To guarantee protection of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced Iraqis and to help ease the great strain on countries receiving refugees, the United States and international community must significantly increase its funding for humanitarian assistance programs and regular monitoring of the allocated funds is too required. Image Read

Yes, this absurd news is true. The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Court has sentenced the women to death by hanging, with the executions set for March 3 in Baghdad. All charged with ‘offences against the public welfare’ by a government that cannot even provide electricity but fills the streets with dead bodies. According to attorney Walid Hayali of the Iraqi Lawyers Union, Wassan Talib, 31, has been charged with the killing of five police officers in an attack on the police, Zainab Fadhil, 25, was charged for an attack on a joint patrol of the Iraqi and U.S. armies in Baghdad while Liqa Muhammad, 26, was charged with the killing of an official in the Green Zone in the course of a kidnapping. None of the three women was permitted to see a lawyer. The trials to which they were subject are illegal under international law. All three are prisoners of war with protected rights under the Third Geneva Convention. Their execution would not only be illegal but would also be immoral. Civilization around the world condemns the death penalty while Iraq’s feudal leaders make a public spectacle of executions. Just re-think this: They are being hanged for carrying out successful military attacks against those who killed their babies, destroyed their homes and who tried to molest them. As Layla Anwar in An Arab Woman Blues – Reflections in a sealed bottle… writes What kind of ‘men’ throw the women of their own country in filthy jails and am sure these women were raped too, with no trial and no real charges? Execute the women of Iraq, young and old. Execute anyone who speaks out against both the occupation by America and Iran. This is it. This is what it boils down to. Iraqi women are testament to the life of the nation of Iraq. The United States and its local conspirators, in creating hundreds of thousands of widows and reducing life in Iraq to a struggle for bare survival, have placed women in the crosshairs and now on the gallows. Women are always the first and last victims of war. There is no honor in murdering women. Occupation is the highest form of dictatorship. It is not these three women who should be prosecuted rather it is this government and its foreign paymaster. Image Read

A victim of rape in Iraq has tried to go against the social custom of suffering mutely but instead has jeopardized her life. She has openly condemned the Iraqi police of sexually molesting her. This is not the first time a criminal case has been framed against the Iraqi officials. A number of organizations have acknowledged sexualized torture as a part of Iraqi prison. According to Iraqi human rights advocate and writer Haifa Zangana, the first question asked of female detainees in Iraq is, Are you Sunni or Shia? The second is, Are you a virgin? It’s no surprise that we’re hearing allegations of rape against the Iraqi National Police, considering who trained them. DynCorp, the private contractor that the Bush Administration hired to prepare Iraq’s new police force for duty, has an ugly record of violence against women. The Bush Administration has refused to protect women’s rights in Iraq. In fact, it has decisively traded women’s rights for cooperation from the Islamists it has helped boost to power. Torture of women by police recruits armed, trained, and funded with US tax dollars is one symptom of this broader crisis. Image Read

The three Iraqi women will not be executed until an appeals court has ruled on their cases. Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Omar Muhammad were accused of participating in the resistance against the U.S. occupation of Iraq and sentenced to death by the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Court. All are in Baghdad’s Al-Kadhimiya Prison. Two have small children beside them in prison. The 1-year-old daughter of Liqa was born in prison. All women deny the charges for which they face hanging. The popular pressure that has been built from everywhere, via numerous routes, impelled, among others: Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan calls his Iraqi counterpart to re-evaluate the execution decision of three Iraqi women. He also mentioned his opposition to the death penalty and drew attention to reactions from the international community, saying that Turkish citizens share the concerns as well. Ann Clwyd MP, special envoy to war criminal Tony Blair on human rights in Iraq, to write to Iraqi authorities outlining her opposition to the death penalty in all cases and calling for investigations into the circumstances of the trials of the three Iraqi women. Luisa Morgantini, vice-president of the European Parliament, to remind the Iraqi government that no state has the right to kill and that Wassan, Zainab and Liqa are prisoners of war with protected status under the Geneva Conventions. Martin Shultz, president of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, to remind Jalal Talabani that the European Union opposes the death penalty. Bottom line Iraqi women are testament to the life of the nation of Iraq. The United States and its local conspirators, in creating hundreds of thousands of widows and reducing life in Iraq to a struggle for bare survival, have placed women in the crosshairs and now on the gallows. Summary executions and arbitrary detention are high crimes under international law for which the occupation must be held accountable. It is the moral duty to every country, which comprises the international scenario to end this crime now! Image Read

It seems that honor killing is a deep-seated tradition in Muslim countries. It is a kind of manacle that has been created by man to restrict the over all progress of women. How often we have read the outcome of this weird custom, which has slaughtered numerous women in Muslim countries, Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan to name a few. A similar threat has smacked the headlines in Israel. A seventeen-year-old girl, Doaa Fares has withdrawn her name from a beauty pageant because she was threatened with death, allegedly by two uncles and other men from her village who accused her of disgracing the family name with promiscuous behavior. Facts & figures: 1. 17 Palestinian women were reported killed in honour crimes. 2. In Israel, seven women were similarly killed. 3. 13 girls and women were murdered in the name of ‘honour’ on International Women’s Day. Bottom line Many women are killed and buried in unmarked graves. Their very existence is removed from community and clan records. The fact that so many murders go unreported is indicative of the status of women and the role of culture in fundamentalist Islamic countries. Women often accept their fate and expect to be executed, even when they are not at fault. Read