The Liberation of Iraqi Women: How's That Working Out?

[RTFirefly]

Not so well, apparently.

GWB, 3/12/04:

Iraqi women are working with the United States State Department to develop democracy programs that educate women about their rights. Women’s self-help and vocational centers are springing up across Iraq, from Karbala to Kirkuk. Our commitment to the women of Iraq is part of a broader effort to support women across the Middle East, from girls’ literacy programs in Yemen, to micro-credit initiatives for women entrepreneurs in Jordan, to legal workshops in Bahrain.

We’re making progress toward greater rights for women in the Middle East and around the world. But still, too many women face violence and prejudice. Many continue to live in fear, imprisoned in their homes. And in brothels, young girls are held against their will and used as sex slaves.

Fast-forward to the present.

Iraqi women are being forced out of their jobs by religious terrorists:

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 [curriculum vitae] 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.

Unemployment affects children

“In about 14 percent of families in Iraq women are the main breadwinners, and often they care for a large number of children. The increase in unemployment among them just means more children without support,” said Sarah Muthulak, a spokeswoman for the Baghdad-based Women’s Rights Association (WRA).

And all too many women who leave the country have to go into the sex trade to support themselves or their families:

For anyone living in Damascus these days, the fact that some Iraqi refugees are selling sex or working in sex clubs is difficult to ignore.

Even in central Damascus, men freely talk of being approached by pimps trawling for customers outside juice shops and shawarma sandwich stalls, and of women walking up to passing men, an act unthinkable in Arab culture, and asking in Iraqi-accented Arabic if the men would like to “have a cup of tea.”

By day the road that leads from Damascus to the historic convent at Saidnaya is often choked with Christian and Muslim pilgrims hoping for one of the miracles attributed to a portrait of the Virgin Mary at the convent. But as any Damascene taxi driver can tell you, the Maraba section of this fabled pilgrim road is fast becoming better known for its brisk trade in Iraqi prostitutes.

Many of these women and girls, including some barely in their teens, are recent refugees. Some are tricked or forced into prostitution, but most say they have no other means of supporting their families. As a group they represent one of the most visible symptoms of an Iraqi refugee crisis that has exploded in Syria in recent months.

According to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, about 1.2 million Iraqi refugees now live in Syria; the Syrian government puts the figure even higher.

Given the deteriorating economic situation of those refugees, a United Nations report found last year, many girls and women in “severe need” turn to prostitution, in secret or even with the knowledge or involvement of family members. In many cases, the report added, “the head of the family brings clients to the house.”

Aid workers say thousands of Iraqi women work as prostitutes in Syria, and point out that as violence in Iraq has increased, the refugee population has come to include more female-headed households and unaccompanied women.

“So many of the Iraqi women arriving now are living on their own with their children because the men in their families were killed or kidnapped,” said Sister Marie-Claude Naddaf, a Syrian nun at the Good Shepherd convent in Damascus, which helps Iraqi refugees.

She said the convent had surveyed Iraqi refugees living in Masaken Barzeh, on the outskirts of Damascus, and found 119 female-headed households in one small neighborhood. Some of the women, seeking work outside the home for the first time and living in a country with high unemployment, find that their only marketable asset is their bodies.

“I met three sisters-in-law recently who were living together and all prostituting themselves,” Sister Marie-Claude said. “They would go out on alternate nights — each woman took her turn — and then divide the money to feed all the children.”

So both in Iraq and in exile, the liberation of Iraqi women proceeds apace, just as Bush said.

Ah well, at least Saddam’s “rape rooms” are gone, so it’s all good, right?

[Mosier]

What should we do about it? Are Iraqi women going to be more liberated when we leave?

[RTFirefly]

Well, we could stop saber-rattling at Syria (I’ve never understood quite why we were doing that in the first place) long enough to provide assistance to Iraqi refugees in that country.

Can’t do much for the women still inside Iraq that I can see. Some things are so fucked up, they’ve long since ceased to be unfuckupable.

[Mosier]

Saber rattling at Syria is causing distress to Iraqi women?

[Voyager]

@Mosier

What should we do about it? Are Iraqi women going to be more liberated when we leave?

They were a lot better off before we came. This should be another class of Iraqis we give asylum to. It might be a good time to start a program, so there won’t be quite so many trying to jump into helicopters in the Green Zone when we finally leave. But I suppose resettling refugees here would be an admission that the Administration screwed up.

[marshmallow]

We should be taking in way more than a token couple hundred of Iraqis per year. I hear there’s a lot of room out in Montana.

[Mosier]

@Voyager

They were a lot better off before we came. This should be another class of Iraqis we give asylum to. It might be a good time to start a program, so there won’t be quite so many trying to jump into helicopters in the Green Zone when we finally leave. But I suppose resettling refugees here would be an admission that the Administration screwed up.

A legitimate suggestion. I find it a lot more helpful than “haha, look how the Bushies screwed up”.

The real question is would Iraqi women WANT asylum in America on any major scale? I can definitely see educated, professional women wanting to get the hell out, but my guess is that situation isn’t even a tiny fraction of the women being oppressed in Iraq.

[John_Mace]

@Voyager

They were a lot better off before we came.

That’s unclear, even if some are worse off. I haven’t seen poll data broken down by gender, but when asked, more Iraqis say life is better overall than say it’s worse (2007 compared to 2003) Link (warning: PDF)

Much/somewhat better: 43%
Same: 22%
Much/somewhat worse: 36%

This should be another class of Iraqis we give asylum to. It might be a good time to start a program, so there won’t be quite so many trying to jump into helicopters in the Green Zone when we finally leave. But I suppose resettling refugees here would be an admission that the Administration screwed up.

I agree that we have done a piss poor job in allowing displaced Iraqis to come to the US. We should be doing a lot more. Do the Democrats have this on their radar screen? I haven’t heard anyone in either party talk about doing something.

[Voyager]

@John Mace

That’s unclear, even if some are worse off. I haven’t seen poll data broken down by gender, but when asked, more Iraqis say life is better overall than say it’s worse (2007 compared to 2003) Link (warning: PDF)

Much/somewhat better: 43%
Same: 22%
Much/somewhat worse: 36%

I’d not be at all surprised if relatively more religious members of the Shia population would feel they were better off. I doubt very much that the educated female population would.

I agree that we have done a piss poor job in allowing displaced Iraqis to come to the US. We should be doing a lot more. Do the Democrats have this on their radar screen? I haven’t heard anyone in either party talk about doing something.

It looks like it is become column fodder. I’d guess someone is commissioning a poll even as we speak.

[RTFirefly]

@Mosier

Saber rattling at Syria is causing distress to Iraqi women?

You’re kidding, right??

But let me retranslate the following for you:

@RTFirefly

we could stop saber-rattling at Syria…long enough to provide assistance to Iraqi refugees in that country.

Saber-rattling at Syria makes it diplomatically difficult for us to help Iraqi women who have escaped to Syria.

[John_Mace]

@RTFirefly

You’re kidding, right??

But let me retranslate the following for you:
Saber-rattling at Syria makes it diplomatically difficult for us to help Iraqi women who have escaped to Syria.

I think that’s pretty far fetched. Are you suggesting that if we stopped “saber-rattling” at Syria, that we could somehow influence how Syrian criminals are treating Iraqi women? The only way we could realistically help them would be to let them come here, which we generally aren’t doing no matter where they were. If we were willing to take them in, I suspect the Syrians would be happy to let us have them, saber rattling or no saber rattling.

[Gala_Matrix_Fire]

@John Mace

That’s unclear, even if some are worse off. I haven’t seen poll data broken down by gender, but when asked, more Iraqis say life is better overall than say it’s worse (2007 compared to 2003) Link (warning: PDF)

Much/somewhat better: 43%
Same: 22%
Much/somewhat worse: 36%

It says they polled 2000 people. I’d love to know what percentage of those people were women. In America, probably about 50% would be women, but in post-invasion Iraq the women tend to stay home and be wary of talking to foreigners and strangers.

[Kimstu]

@John Mace

Are you suggesting that if we stopped “saber-rattling” at Syria, that we could somehow influence how Syrian criminals are treating Iraqi women?

Not Syrian criminals, no. But I think one could make a case that if we had better diplomatic relations with Syria, we could influence how the Syrian government is treating Iraqi women. As RTF’s third linked article notes:

Mouna Asaad, a Syrian women’s rights lawyer, said the government had been blindsided by the scale of the arriving Iraqi refugee population. Syria does not require visas for citizens of Arab countries, and its government had pledged to assist needy Iraqis. But this country of 19 million was ill equipped to cope with the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of them, Ms. Asaad said.

“Sometimes you see whole families living this way, the girls pimped by the mother or aunt,” she said. “But prostitution isn’t the only problem. Our schools are overcrowded, and the prices of services, food and transportation have all risen. We don’t have the proper infrastructure to deal with this. We don’t have shelters or health centers that these women can go to. And because of the situation in Iraq, Syria is careful not to deport these women.”

If we want to help Iraqi women in Syria (short of helping them by making their own country a safe and livable place to return to, which we don’t seem able to do so far), I think the only way to do it is through agreements with the Syrian government.

[John_Mace]

@Kimstu

Not Syrian criminals, no. But I think one could make a case that if we had better diplomatic relations with Syria, we could influence how the Syrian government is treating Iraqi women. As RTF’s third linked article notes:

If we want to help Iraqi women in Syria (short of helping them by making their own country a safe and livable place to return to, which we don’t seem able to do so far), I think the only way to do it is through agreements with the Syrian government.

Don’t get me wrong-- I’m all for toning things down and improving relations with Syria. But we have excellent relations with Saudi Arabia, and I don’t see that helping out women in that country.

[RTFirefly]

@John Mace

I think that’s pretty far fetched. Are you suggesting that if we stopped “saber-rattling” at Syria, that we could somehow influence how Syrian criminals are treating Iraqi women?

OK, let me say it A THIRD TIME:

@RTFirefly

we could stop saber-rattling at Syria…long enough to provide assistance to Iraqi refugees in that country.

@John Mace

The only way we could realistically help them would be to let them come here, which we generally aren’t doing no matter where they were. If we were willing to take them in, I suspect the Syrians would be happy to let us have them, saber rattling or no saber rattling.

You mean if we gave them money there so that they didn’t have to prostitute themselves just to survive, they’d still be forced to prostitute themselves? Maybe I’m missing something here.

It’s really simple:

1. Chances are the Syrian government doesn’t really give a flip one way or the other about the welfare of Iraqi refugees in Syria.

2. However, to the extent that a million or so refugees puts a burden on their society, they do give a flip about that. So

3. If we were willing to stop threatening them long enough to help them deal with the refugee problem we’ve foisted on them, they’d probably let us help the refugees. Refugees with money to spend is less of a drag on the economy than refugees who don’t have money to spend. The Syrian government would probably like some of the aid to flow through them so they could skim some off the top, but what the hey.

[John_Mace]

@RTFirefly

OK, let me say it A THIRD TIME:

You mean if we gave them money…

Well, we wouldn’t give them money in any case, but there isn’t anything stopping us from giving them aid, even with the saber rattling. Hell, we offered Iran aid when they had an earthquake in 2006 (they turned us down, IIRC).

And there is no way in hell we’d let money or aid be channeled thru the Syrian government. I hope you’re not implying that we should.

If you think people are going to automatically assume that assistance = money, you’re mistaken. Note that **Kimstu **didn’t interpret your post that way either.

[gonzomax]

While Iraq had a lot of problems before ,women were far better off. Over half the college students were women and over half the civil service workers were women. They did not have to dress according to any religious code .
I have been reading blogs by Iraqis for a couple years. I get the info from the.
http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/
This blog started during the invasion and will describe what has gone on in the country for the last 4 years.

[Chief_Pedant]

NPR aired an interview today with Yanar Mohammed on the state of women in Iraq In Iraq, Activist Struggles as Women's Rights Shrink : NPR .

I found it sad.

Islam as a theocracy is just horrible toward women. Our invasion of Iraq has resulted in driving their power structure toward Islamic fundamentalists and among the many tragedies of that wretched way of thinking is the utter decimation of women’s rights along with their humanity…it’s enough to make even an old geezer like me turn into a feminazi. There is no hope for those people. They are totally screwed no matter what any external power does at this point, and the women are the worst off.

Saying any more would probably get me cast into the pit.

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

@marshmallow

We should be taking in way more than a token couple hundred of Iraqis per year. I hear there’s a lot of room out in Montana.

We could move the state of Israel there and be done with a whole lot of strife in the area, but we’re also talking about individuals with (supposedly) inalienable rights.

Say, isn’t that the same argument for not rebuilding/resettling New Orleans? It’s in an unsafe area, so it shouldn’t be rebuilt/should be moved?

[Voyager]

@Least Original User Name Ever

We could move the state of Israel there and be done with a whole lot of strife in the area, but we’re also talking about individuals with (supposedly) inalienable rights.

Say, isn’t that the same argument for not rebuilding/resettling New Orleans? It’s in an unsafe area, so it shouldn’t be rebuilt/should be moved?

What inalienable rights? Do you doubt that the Iraqis who have helped us wouldn’t love to come here, given the chance? I suspect a purely voluntary program would have plenty of takers.