Change might not be good for Iraqi women

By Marie SzaniszloSunday,
August 14, 2005 - Updated: 10:14 AM EST

In a chilling irony, women may actually have fewer rights under Iraq's new, ``democratic'' constitution than they did under Saddam Hussein.

``The United States government has poured millions of dollars into democracy training for Iraqi women, and more than 1,800 Americans have died for Iraqi freedom. But it may turn out to be for Iraqi male freedom,'' said Katheryn Coughlin, program administrator for the American Islamic Congress, a nonprofit doing democracy training in Iraq.

That's a sad return on such an enormous investment.''

On the eve of the deadline for the final draft of Iraq's new constitution, Hub Iraqis blasted attempts to replace the country's secular civil code with Islamic Shariah law, which restricts women's rights to an education, to careers and marriage partners of their choice, to divorce and to inheritance.

``It appears Islam will be a major source in the constitution,'' said Ahmed Al-Rahim of Boston, whose parents were born in Iraq and who served as adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority.

``And under Islamic law, it appears women won't necessarily be equal.''

Iraq has been governed by civil law since 1959. And that law guaranteed women most of the same freedoms their Western counterparts enjoy.

But during the past year, Shiites have applied mounting pressure to replace the civil code with Shariah, under which questions of education, work and marriage are decided by male guardians, said Coughlin.

Although many Iraqi women's groups had lobbied for a female quota of at least 40 percent of Parliamentary seats, by the time Al-Rahim left Iraq, where he worked with the constitutional committee, there was some debate whether the quota would even be 25 percent.

``The majority of women in the Assembly are just silent,'' he said. ``They really haven't spoken up.''

Their silence is troubling. Under some interpretations of Islamic law, Al-Rahim said, girls can be married off when they are as young as 9, men who divorce automatically receive custody of their children and a woman whose father dies inherits only half the amount her brothers do.

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