Caught up in the whirlwind

Guardian.co.uk ^ | 04/28/08 | Zeina Zaatari

[forkinsocket]

The situation for women in Iraq has become critical. US forces and the Iraqi government need to take urgent action to protect them

Iraqi women's organisations and international observers point to an escalating war against women in Iraq, aided by widespread chaos and lawlessness under the US occupation. In addition to violence by US troops inside and outside of prisons, women in Iraq face daily violence from militants under the guise of religion and "liberation".

In Iraq's second largest city, Basra, a stronghold of conservative Shia groups, as many as 133 women were killed last year for violating "Islamic teachings" and in so-called "honour killings", according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The methods are brutal evidence of a backlash by previously subdued tribal forces that have been unleashed by the occupation: women strangled and beheaded, and their hands, arms and legs chopped off.

With US forces in Iraq now funding both Sunni and Shia tribal leaders in an effort to stabilise the country, conditions for women grow deadlier by the day. Islamist leaders have imposed new restrictions on women, including prohibitions on work, bans on travel without a muhram (male guardian), and compulsory veiling.

[forkinsocket]

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[donna]

Women are only safe in a Judeo/Christian culture.

[DrGunsforHands]

In addition to violence by US troops inside and outside of prisons, women in Iraq face daily violence from militants under the guise of religion and "liberation". They just couldn't resist slandering our troops and equating them to terrorists.

[nin_kasi]

Muslims beheading women? Bush’s fault.

[infantrywhooah]

Women are lower than stray dogs in the pecking order in Islam. Men are expected to beat their wives to keep them in line for even the most minor of "infractions". Yet they are free to do anything they want. Under Ismaic law, the blame falls on the woman's shoulders if she is raped. That is outright barbaric. A woman in Saudi was publically beaten a little over a year ago for being kidnapped and gang raped by five men. Why? Because she had sex with a man other than her husband. That falls so far outside my ability to comprehend that words escape me.