SULEIMANIYAH, 9 March 2007 (IRIN) - Women in
Iraq’s Kurdistan are using the relative calm in their region to make slow
progress towards equal status with men – but there is still a long way to go,
according to activists.
Photo:
IRIN
Kurdish women are taking
advantage of the relative calm in their area of Iraq to complete their
education
Abuse by men pushed 538 women to commit
suicide last year, according to Sara Qader, a journalist with the weekly Awina
newspaper.
“Some of these women are still facing violence from
their husbands or families and honour killings still exist in some rural areas
of Kurdistan. These forced 538 women to commit suicide in 2006 alone,” Qader
said.
She added that non-governmental agencies advocating women’s
rights have had no impact. “Some of these women’s organisations are
affiliated to political parties and that makes it more difficult for women to
advance and have rights equal to those of men,” Qader said.
Kurdish women have 29 seats in the Kurdistan parliament and three
portfolios.
“But as a tribal society, social pressures are still
being applied by men on the women which keep them from getting their rights,”
said Parwa Ali, a social researcher and activist.
However, there
is hope – 24 years ago, poverty forced Afrah Abdullah to abandon her education
to help her family. Now the 34-year-old mother-of-four is returning to school to
continue her studies.
“My father died when I was 10 and as I was
the eldest of my three sisters, I had to abandon school to help my mother to sew
to earn our living,” Abdullah said.
“It is really embarrassing
when someone doesn’t know how to read or write. I couldn’t even follow up on my
children’s education,” she added.
Social restrictions, war and
population displacement deprived Abdullah and many other Kurds in northern Iraq
of an education as children.
Omed Kaka Rash, director of the
Illiteracy Eradication Programme in the Kurdistan Regional Government, said 27
percent of people over the age of 10 are classed as illiterate in Kurdistan –
281,992 women and 446,668 men.
"A broader literacy campaign is
under way in Kurdistan now and everyone who is illiterate will be able to read
and write within the next three years," Rash said.
"Kurdistan's
education ministry is providing textbooks, desks and other materials, and will
recognise the school's leaving certificate, meaning graduates will be able to go
on to higher education," she added.
The schools accept women
regardless of age and put them on an accelerated learning programme where, for
example, the standard primary school course of six years is cut to three.
Most of the adult education facilities are in the city of
Suleimaniyah, about 350km north of Baghdad.
Now, tens of
illiterate women are joining the Accelerated Learning School in Chamchamal, a
poor town 60km south of Suleimaniyah.
“I feel as if I'm coming
back to life again; being illiterate is something like being blind, dumb or
paralysed,” said Maryam Salih, a 34-year-old mother of three.
“We
were a poor family and my father couldn't afford send me to school. I will
continue studying until I finish school and get a job so I can earn my own
income and help my husband," she
added.