Iraqi Women Decry Move To Cut Rights

Council Would Place Matters Of Family Under Islamic Law

BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 -- For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes.

Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as sharia.

This week, outraged Iraqi women -- from judges to cabinet ministers -- denounced the decision in street protests and at conferences, saying it would set back their legal status by centuries and could unleash emotional clashes among various Islamic strains that have differing rules for marriage, divorce and other family issues.

"This will send us home and shut the door, just like what happened to women in Afghanistan," said Amira Hassan Abdullah, a Kurdish lawyer who spoke at a protest meeting Thursday. Some Islamic laws, she noted, allow men to divorce their wives on the spot.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21321-2004Jan15.html

Bush, thy name is failure.

"BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 -- For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes.

Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as sharia."


How can this be? I mean this guy was MR Evil, how can it be that woman had more rights under his watch than the bush team? News like this is going to make some Americans think the white horse bush rides isn't as white as the media wants Americans to believe. Of course democrats never did see the white horse, they saw too many American citizens getting screwed to believe in the knight in white horse theory.

The council's decisions must be approved by L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, and aides said unofficially that his imprimatur for this change was unlikely. But experts here said that once U.S. officials turn over political power to Iraqis at the end of June, conservative forces could press ahead with their agenda to make sharia the supreme law. Spokesmen for Bremer did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

What does Laura Bush have to say about this?

I've heard that Laura Bush has a lot of Democratic friends from school and college. Laura and the rest of the Bush women are supposedly pro-choice, but that has done little good.

They can't be too happy about this either, but they don't have the backbone to tell Too Stupid that this is wrong.

about women's rights in Afghanistan, not that anyone listens.

the US won't be able to do much to stop this regression if we fully turn over governance in mid year as the Putrescent Poltroon* suggested.

(* I love this new term for *. Thank you, thank you whomever for writing it in another thread!)

a sharia-equivalent to govern the rights of women in the U.S. - they aren't going to make a serious objection. So, we have "liberated" Iraq so that the majority of its people - all the women - have lost basic civil liberties. I feel like I'm living the prelude to The Handmaid's Tale. What is the gender breakdown on the Iraqi Governing Council?

It looks like Saddam not only didn't 'touch those rights' but he was instrumental in enshrining those rights into law, at least according to the site below (which seems fairly balanced on a cursory examination). Just another way the grey world of reality departs from the black and white world of propaganda.



History of Women in Iraq

In the 1920s and 1930's, women in Iraq began working and accepting positions in the job market. In 1970, the Iraqi constitution, under Saddam Hussein, declared all women and men equal before the law. The 1970s and early 1980s were years of economic growth in Iraq and state-induced policies were formed to eradicate illiteracy, educate women and incorporate them into the labor force. Labor at that time was scarce and the Iraqi government chose to tap into its own human resources and hire women. Women in Iraq became among the most educated and professional in the entire region, and working outside the home became the norm. Women could find and retain jobs, obtain higher education, and receive extensive medical coverage. A working Iraqi mother received five years of maternity leave. In 1980 women could vote and run for election.

http://womensissues.about.com/cs/iraq/a/iraqi_women.htm

Saddam had some strangely liberal policies, including allowing a degree of religious freedom (Tariq "Baghdad Bob" Aziz is Christian) and women's rights. Thats why Bin Laden hated him so.

Unfuckingbelievable. W

ay to go george.

and are still denied equal rights, since the US-backed Karzai regime allowed Sharia law to take precedence over civil law.

Women always get a raw deal, and women's rights never enter into American foreign policy calculations.

His vision of what America should be obviously. Must be why bremer is comming back to America, "George* are you sure this is what you want?"

Bush is delivering Iraqi women "freedom" like he delivered his fake turkey.

How very, very sad.

Is this true?

I'm beyond outrage. I don't know what to do with this.

Karma is not enough. There has to be tangible, physical hell for bush and his crew.

The Women in Iraq. From what I can see, if the whole lot of them were "mowed down" most of our good citizens would quickly get over "the shock" of it and get back to their son's soccer game or the sitcoms.

Unfortunately, too many people think that all Muslim countries are identical in their treatment of women. They probably thought that women in Iraq received the same treatment as women in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

We need to blast this story to Boxer, Feinstein, Pelosi, Hillary, Stabenow, etc. It will take the world's women to stop this madness before it takes over like an aggressive and lethal malignancy.

God only knows how we will all make it until the election.

It is just beyond my imagination what George W. Bush has wrought in 3 years.