INTERNATIONAL Women’s Day is celebrated in Iraq this year while the majority of women suffer poverty and exploitation, and continue to fight relentlessly against oppression, discrimination, marginalisation, unemployment and illiteracy, for their just rights, emancipation and equality.  

It also marks the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the Iraqi Women’s League (IWL), on March 10 1952. 

It is now the oldest women’s democratic organisation in Iraq, with a glorious history of struggle and sacrifices in defence of their fundamental rights and as a courageous component of the people’s democratic patriotic movement. 

The IWL is credited with the enactment of the Personal Status Law No 188 in 1959, which was a big achievement by the women’s movement after the July 14 Revolution in 1958. 

It was regarded as the most progressive law of its kind in the Arab world. The reactionary forces have attempted, and continue till this day, to abolish and circumvent this law, but have failed.  

Women were targeted under the fascist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and his ruling Ba’ath Party. Many democratic women activists were arrested and physically liquidated under torture or “disappeared” without any trace. 

The latter was the fate of the prominent leader of the Iraqi Women’s League, Aida Yassin, who was arrested in 1980 and her fate is still unknown. 

Women also had their share of mass executions, in some cases along with their husbands and sons. 

Women bore the brunt of suffering during the bloody Iran-Iraq war that lasted eight years (1980-88) and under the brutal economic sanctions that continued throughout the 1990s and until the US war and occupation in 2003. 

During the infamous Anfal genocide campaign waged by Saddam’s regime against the Kurdish people in the late 1980s, more than 180,000 people were killed, including women and whole families. 

Women were also active participants in the armed partisan movement in Iraqi Kurdistan against the fascist dictatorship during the 1980s.  

For Iraqis, therefore, International Women’s Day is an occasion to remember all the courageous women who sacrificed their lives for the cause of freedom and democracy, fighting to liberate their homeland and people from tyranny, and to build a better future for Iraq. 

In recent years, women have played a vital role in popular protests that developed and escalated since 2011 against the ethno-sectarian power-sharing system, political sectarianism and endemic corruption. 

Young women made a significant contribution to the heroic uprising that erupted on October 1 2019 and continued for several months, despite bloody repression by security forces and sectarian militias which resulted in more than 700 protesters killed and 30,000 wounded. 

Many of them were among victims of kidnapping and torture.  

The uprising has had a tremendous impact on Iraqi women, raising political and social awareness to unprecedented levels. 

It has given impetus to their struggles on various fronts, not only to defend the gains achieved in previous years, but also to fight for true emancipation and equality. 

Women victims of Isis

One of the major challenges facing women in Iraq today is the horrific legacy of terrorist Isis (Da’ish), more than four years after its military defeat. 

During its reign of terror, 2014 to 2017, it committed barbaric crimes against religious and ethnic minorities. The Yazidi community in Sinjar in northern Iraq suffered crimes of genocide. 

Some 6,500 Yazidi women and girls were victims of a system of organised rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage by Isis. 

About 2,800 Yazidis, including women, are still missing. The suffering of tens of thousands languishing in displacement camps continues.

The Iraqi parliament passed the Law on Yazidi Female Survivors on March 1 2021 which recognised crimes committed by Isis and provides for compensation for survivors, as well as measures for their rehabilitation and reintegration into society and the prevention of such crimes in the future. 

But little progress had been made towards applying the law. The Iraqi Women’s League has called on the government to implement this law, as well as programmes to empower widows in the areas liberated from Isis, providing them with education and job opportunities. 

This would enable them to participate in the process of reconstruction and building sustainable peace and security.  

Combating violence against women

The Iraqi Women’s League (IWL) has recently called on the government to speed up the enactment of a law for protecting women against domestic violence. 

In a statement issued on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, on November 25 2021, it also called for following up the implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) and ensuring the compatibility of Iraqi laws with international agreements. 

In addition, the IWL has called for abolition of the articles in the Iraqi Penal Code No 111 (1969) that constitute a grave violation of women’s rights. 

It presented a legal objection to the Federal Supreme Court calling for the annulment of Article 41 in this Penal Code because it is unconstitutional and legalises violence. 

This article permits the “right to discipline” a wife by her husband. It also allows parents and teachers to exercise this “right” against minor children. 

The Supreme Federal Court decided on February 20 2022 rejected this bid, citing a previous ruling it had taken three years ago against a similar lawsuit brought by a lawyer. 

Despite this unjust decision, which is in contradiction with the constitution, the IWL will continue campaigning against such articles in the Penal Code and all forms of violence against women and children. 

This is a fundamental issue in the ongoing fight by the Iraqi democratic forces for comprehensive change, to build a state based on the principle of citizenship, the rule of law, respect for human rights and equal opportunities. 

Only such a democratic civil state and social justice can ensure building a society free of violence, in which women enjoy justice and equality in rights; a better, peaceful and prosperous Iraq.