BAGHDAD, 7 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - Since the fall of Saddam Hussein
in early 2003, the number of women attacked for choosing not to wear head
scarves and veils has more than tripled, according to the Women’s Rights
Association (WRA), a local NGO in the capital, Baghdad.
“Women are being
killed because they don’t wear headscarves and veils,” said WRA spokeswoman
Mayada Zuhair. “A life is being taken because of a simple piece of cloth, and
someone should prevent more women from being killed by these ignorant people who
that believe honour depends on what you’re wearing.”
According to WRA,
there have been 80 attacks to date against women and reports of four women being
killed by their families in 2005. This is compared too 22 attacks between 1999
and March 2003 and one death.
“Women’s interest in using
headscarves/veils in Iraq has decreased, not because they’ve forgotten their
religion, but because, when Saddam’s regime was ousted, modernism and
development stood before us and everyone wanted to be part of the change,”
Zuhair maintained. “Not wearing the headscarf/veil is one of the characteristics
of modernisation.”
Zuhair explained that the choice not to wear
headscarves is much more pronounced in the capital because society there is more
open to modernisation. This is opposed to the south of the country, where
traditional family life has changed very little since the war in 2003.
“It’s difficult to say how many women wear headscarves and veils,”
Zuhair added. “But, before 2003, roughly, seven out of 10 were wearing scarves
and coverings, whereas now, four in 10 do.”
The three recent deaths
happened in and around the capital, according to Zuhair. Two of them were single
girls found walking in local markets without the covering, while the other two
were married women who had abandoned their scarves and veils after marriage at
the request of their husbands, Zuhair explained.
Often, women receive
threats but are too afraid to seek help from organisations such as the WRA,
Zuhair said. In many cases, fearing reprisals, women who feel threatened will
ask a friend to approach the association for them, she added. Some women have
reportedly been kept prisoners in their own homes or have received threats from
parents or relatives.
Occasionally, the WRA has requested protection for
women from police, but conservative social attitudes often prevent what is
commonly viewed as “interference” in private matters. “Police interference is
very difficult. In most cases, the husband is the one who has to search for help
because we can’t interfere in issues related to traditional values,” Zuhair
noted. “The husband is the only one who has this right.”
According to
Sheikh Ali Muthilak, a spokesman at the Rahman mosque in Baghdad, women become
the “property” of their husbands after marriage. “The husband makes decisions
about their lives,” he said. “Sometimes you get the impression that women are
vegetables that can be easily exchanged, without feelings or ideas.”
Compounding the problem, the law allows for abuses against women, say
women’s rights activists. The Iraqi Penal Code, for example, states that "the
penalty for killing a woman should be reduced if a crime was committed for
reasons of honour". A so-called “honour killing” is where a woman’s relative
kills her for what is described as an act which brings dishonour to the family.
Not covering up, according to Zuhair, can be perceived as such an act.
Yehia Abdul Salam, 37, says his wife was strangled by her father in
Baquba, some 70 km north of the capital. “My wife, Leila, was killed by her
father because she went to visit him without her veil, which I asked her to take
off after our marriage,” said Salam.
“They [the parents] thought she had
destroyed the honour of her family, and death was her penalty.” Leila’s father
has never been investigated for the crime, Salam added.
Meanwhile, the
Iraqi police describe the issue as “delicate,” involving a volatile mix of
religion and tradition cultivated by Iraqi Muslim families for decades. “We’re
in a Muslim country… if you interfere in family cases concerning veils, you’re
considered a betrayer of Islam,” explained police officer Ali Zacarias. “We
cannot touch such cases.”
Rahman Ala’a, a senior official in the interior
ministry, blamed the constitution for not setting down women’s rights more
clearly. “For the police to interfere in women’s rights issues, we need to have
it well explained in the constitution, which at present doesn’t address such
issues,” he said.
Zuhair concluded that the challenge was therefore left
to Iraqi women to assert their rights for themselves.
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