U.S.-Occupied Iraq: Women suffer untold violence

i-eclectica.org ·

The radio news magazine "Between The Lines" interviewed Yifat Susskind, communications director with MADRE, an an international women’s human rights organisation based in New York City. Yifat is also author of a report on violence against Iraqi women titled, "Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq." The report, made public on March 6 at a meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations, exposes what it calls "the incidence, causes, and legalization of gender-based violence in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion." (...) Women, who under Saddam Hussein’s secular regime had a lot of freedom, access to education and a wide range of jobs, are saying across the board that their lives are much, much worse now than they were under the previous regime. For example, in much of Iraq so-called punishment committees of Islamist militias are patrolling the streets and attacking women who don’t dress to their liking. In a lot of places, they kill women who wear pants or appear in public without a head scarf. Most Iraqi women are virtually confined to their homes now, because of the likelihood of being beaten or raped or abducted in the streets...

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