Women Suffer Untold Violence and Repression in U.S.-Occupied Iraq

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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00217.htm

Women Suffer Untold Violence and Repression in U.S.-Occupied Iraq

Interview with Yifat Susskind, communications director with MADRE and author of a report on violence against Iraqi women, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Listen in RealAudio:

http://www.btlonline.org/susskind031607.ram

The situation for Iraqi women since the U.S. invasion four years ago this month has deteriorated dramatically by every measure of daily survival: lack of access to clean water, electricity, food, education and jobs; and the absence of personal security. Women have virtually disappeared from public life in Iraq, yet their disappearance has been barely noted by media coverage of the war.

On March 6, MADRE, an international women's human rights organization based in New York City, released a report titled, "Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq." The report, made public at a meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations, exposes what it calls "the incidence, causes, and legalization of gender-based violence in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion."

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Yifat Susskind, communications director with MADRE, and author of the report. She discusses how Iraq's gender war and civil war are intertwined, as well as the role of U.S. occupation forces in the abuse of Iraqi women.

YIFAT SUSSKIND: Iraqis really have faced two inter-related crises since the U.S. invasion. One is, of course, the civil war and the sectarian cleansing that we’ve heard so much about. And another we’ve heard much less about, and that is this a very directed campaign of violence against women. The fact is that the systematic attacks on women and the sectarian cleansing are deeply intertwined. One of the things that MADRE was warning about back in 2005 when the Iraqi constitution was being drafted is that a lot of the provisions in the constitution that set the stage for sectarian conflict also inscribed what we’ve been calling gender apartheid – in other words, separate sets of laws, separate and unequal laws, for men and women on the basis of gender. All the articles of the constitution use sharia, or clerics’ interpretations of Islamic law, as the basis for national legislation in Iraq under the new constitution. It allows people who are unelected – in some cases self-appointed – religious authorities to de

[Chimichurri]

1. Horrific. I am so ashamed that we allowed this to happen to them.

May God have mercy on all of us.

[Maat]

2. Thanks for the post.

I usually send these to my relatives who supported DimSon in both elections. I demand that they account for the results created by their vote. I never have received a reply, however.