The War on Iraq's Women

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/#60680

The War on Iraq's Women
Posted by Lucinda Marshall on August 25, 2007 at 7:19 AM.

This post, written by Lucinda Marshall, originally appeared on the Feminist Peace Network

It almost defies comprehension that such a thing is possible, but as several recent news reports attest, the horrendous circumstances faced by Iraqi women continue to deteriorate. The welfare of pregnant women has been particularly compromised as a result of the constant bombing, curfews, lack of electricity and safe water, bombed hospitals and lack of medicine and medical personnel.

"For at least two women in every 12 who seek emergency delivery assistance here, either the mother or her child dies," Dr Ibrahim Khalil, a gynecologist at Al-Karada maternity hospital, said.

"Mothers are usually anemic and children are born underweight as a result of a poor nutrition and lack of pre-natal care," Khalil said, adding: "There aren't any official figures but we can see that the number has doubled since Saddam Hussein's time."

According to UNICEF,

"Iraq's maternal mortality rates have increased dramatically in the last 15 years. In 1989, 117 mothers out of 100,000 died during pregnancy or childbirth. That figure has now gone up by 65 per cent."

of this administration and the ones before this? This is a long-term project, and the ones who are dying are all civilians, since there no longer is a true armed force in Iraq. Those who are dying are not insurgents, they are freedom fighters, and this is simply evil.

TC