For the women of Iraq, the war is just beginning

In the void created by the inability of western forces to establish order in Iraq, militant Islam is eroding the rights of women in a region where their rights were once the envy of the Islamic world under Saddam.

Across Iraq, a bloody and relentless oppression of women has taken hold. Many women had their heads shaved for refusing to wear a scarf or have been stoned in the street for wearing make-up. Others have been kidnapped and murdered for crimes that are being labelled simply as "inappropriate behaviour". The insurrection against the fragile and barely functioning state has left the country prey to extremists whose notion of freedom does not extend to women.

In the British-occupied south, where Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army retains a stranglehold, women insist the situation is at its worst. Here they are forced to live behind closed doors only to emerge, concealed behind scarves, hidden behind husbands and fathers. Even wearing a pair of trousers is considered an act of defiance, punishable by death.

One Basra woman, known only as Dr Kefaya, was working in the women and children's hospital unit at the city university when she started receiving threats from extremists. She defied them. Then, one day a man walked into the building and murdered her.

In the Muslim religion, if a man dies, his money is left to a male relative. After the Iran-Iraq war produced so many widows, Saddam Hussein changed this law so that the widow inherited her spouses money. In the new Iraq, this law has been changed back.

Optimists say the very fact that 25 per cent of Iraq's Provincial Council is composed of women proves women have been empowered since the invasion. But the people of Basra say it is a smokescreen. Any woman who becomes a part of the system, they say, is incapable of engineering any change for the better. Posters around the city promoting the constitution graphically illustrate that view. The faces of the women candidates have been blacked out, the accompanying slogan, "No women in politics," a stark reminder of the opposition they face.

Ms Aziz said: "Women members of the Provincial Council had many dreams but they were told 'With respect, you don't know anything. This is a world of men. Your view is good but not better.' More and more they just agreed to sign whatever they were told. We have got women in power, who are powerless."

This is the reality on the ground of George Bush's new democracy in Iraq. Women now have less rights that they had under Saddam Hussein.

With a new government threatening to operate under Sharia law, this will only get worse for them.

As one of the 90 women in the new Parliament, Jenan al-Ubaedy explained what this law will mean for the women of Iraq.

"[The husband] can beat his wife but not in a forceful way, leaving no mark. If he should leave a mark, he will pay. He can beat her when she is not obeying him in his rights. We want her to be educated enough that she will not force him to beat her, and if he beats her with no right, we want her to be strong enough to go to the police."

Jenan al-Ubaedy, one of the much heralded female members of the new Parliament, says that she supports this law.

It seems, in the new Iraq, that turkeys can vote for Christmas.

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Tags: Iraq, womens, rights, sharia, law,