Iraq Constitution based on Islamic Law on 8/15 ? (less rights for WOMEN) [View All]

[cthrumatrix]

Democracy Now talked about this today....

AMY GOODMAN: Antonia, can you talk more about women in Iraq? Interestingly in our next segment, we'll go to Cindy Sheehan, the American mother who's sitting outside President Bush’s ranch, whose son Casey died in Iraq. You talk a great deal about women in Iraq, what their situation is today.

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Well, the situation for women in Iraq is tenuous, but one of the issues that I don't think is addressed enough is the fact that because the U.S. reconstruction had been so biased towards U.S. corporations and not focusing on what Iraqis need, the conditions, with the lack of water, the lack of electricity, the lack of health care, of course, falls disproportionately onto women and the need to provide those resources themselves and to make sure that their families have access to those resources. So women in Iraq lives have been more dominated by the need to just meet their basic family subsistence needs.

Women's rights in Iraq under Hussein had been some of the best, certainly in the Middle East, and had been guaranteed, as I said, under the Hussein era constitution. Now much of that is very much up in play as the negotiations seem to be putting significantly more attention onto Islamic law. There is however a very powerful women's rights movement in Iraq that is fighting very aggressively to stem that tide, and that is certainly an issue that is still up in the air, and we'll have to wait until Monday to find out what happens.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/12/1422244

Imagine women's rights could go "backwards" from when Saddam was in charge.

What the hell would women around the US say?