Women's Rights in Iraq: Decreasing by the Day

According to the simplistic rhetoric of Bush and company, the fall of Saddam Hussein and the arrival of the Americans was supposed to mark Iraq's "liberation" and ensure greater freedom for all citizens, particularly the niqab-clad women whom the West thrills in fetishizing as oppressed.

But it hasn't really turned out this way.

One major problem is that the stories of women's rights before foreign invasion are rarely, if ever, told, with politicians preferring to paint them as one-note, backwards and medieval precursors to the enlightenment brought by the arrival of foreign armies. This means that travesties caused by the occupation can be justified as improvements or necessary evils to avoid the horrors of what came before.

Malalai Joya, the Afghan activist who continues to fight for the end of the occupation of her country, has consistently pointed out that women were making progress in gaining rights until a series of foreign occupations ravaged Afghanistan. Similarly, Iraqi women enjoyed relatively progressive rights under a 1958 law which allowed them to divorce their husbands and inherit property, and they could study, work, and move about freely under Saddam.

Just as arguments claiming that Afghan women were "better off" under the Taliban are controversial and in my opinion, misguided, so are arguments claiming that Iraqi women were "better off" under Saddam. My idea here certainly isn't to glorify these regimes, but rather to show that foreign occupation is messy, destructive and harmful and that in many ways it worsens women's situation and further inhibits their ability to demand rights. Such is certainly the case in Iraq.

The Iraqi constitution now contains a clause stating that no law can contradict the "established rulings of Islam", and law and politics are increasingly under the control of conservative Islamic groups with the support of the Iranian government. Women are losing rights by the day. They now risk their lives going to work, going to school, and simply leaving their homes. Surges of tribalism have led to regional control by radical groups who beat women for not covering themselves, and rape is increasingly used as a weapon by warring tribal factions.

A political science professor at Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad stated that women bear a "double burden" under the occupation: that of decreased security and decreased rights. They are now the targets of religious groups who attack and murder them for working, dressing "inappropriately" or attending university, and they are frequent victims of kidnapping and abduction. Their rights are slipping away with the creeping Islamic influence over the state. They are economically threatened when their husbands are detained, held or killed, and millions have become refugees.

Is this the glorious return of women's rights we were supposed to see with occupation, or is it something else? Something like another tragic example of what happens when foreign occupying powers attempt to impose and maintain control?

Photo credit: DVIDSHUB