IRAQ: The Road Ahead Women's rights and the future of Iraq

The unstable security situation in Iraq already made women particularly vulnerable. As violence spread across the country, women's mobility and access to the public sphere was dramatically reduced. Still, Iraqi women are doing their best to hold their own. Will opportunities created by and for women be allowed to continue?

Divisions between secularists and Islamists represent a major fault line in Iraqi society in the post-Saddam Hussein years. Indeed, ideological conflict is enshrined in Iraq's new constitution, adopted in 2005: while several clauses guarantee personal freedoms and gender equality, Article 2 specifies Islam as the official religion of the state and a basic source of legislation. It also states that “no law shall be enacted that contradicts the established provisions of Islam.”

How tensions between secularism and Islamism will be resolved remains unclear. In the contested March 2010 parliamentary elections, Ayad Allawi narrowly won the most votes running on a largely secular platform that seemed to bridge sectarian divides. However, he could not form a government. Instead, Shi'ite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr emerged as Iraq's kingmaker, throwing his weight behind incumbent Nouri Al-Maliki, who formed a coalition government with his support. Though this restored a measure of stability, the tension between secular and Islamist visions of Iraq's future reverberates through a host of issues.

For women, the stakes are particularly high. In the 1970s and 1980s, Iraqi women benefited from progressive laws promoting their political and economic participation. The Baathist regime pushed female education and women's participation in the workforce and politics. By the late 1980s, Iraq had one of the region's highest female literacy rates. All this proved reversible, however, as Saddam's turn to social conservatism in the 1990s, as well as sanctions, took their toll. Female unemployment rose and literacy plummeted. With the upsurge of religious identity politics after Saddam's fall, the secular framework that had benefited women was rejected by powerful elements within Iraq's political matrix.

Today, legal uncertainty looms over women's rights. One of the first warning signs for women's rights came in December 2003 when the US-appointed Interim Governing Council (IGC) slipped through Resolution 137, replacing Iraq's personal status law with a sharia-based system that would have put family affairs in the hands of clerics. Relentless lobbying by Iraqi women's groups managed to overturn the resolution, but the Shi'a religious parties had made clear their intent. Despite the strong showing of secularists in the 2010 parliamentary elections, the return of Muqtada Al-Sadr in January 2011 from self-imposed exile in Iran could push Iraq toward more rigid Islamism. Sadr's faction remains just seats shy of a parliamentary majority. Even Allawi—hailed as a moderate, secular figure—was willing to make “concessions” when they met in Damascus in July 2010. A government has since been formed, but the country's political contract remains as delicate as ever.

In such situations, with major sectarian and material interests hanging in the balance, women's rights are often among the first items pushed off the table. The unstable security situation in Iraq already made women particularly vulnerable. As violence spread across the country, women's mobility and access to the public sphere was dramatically reduced. Police did little to stop religious vigilante groups from brutalizing and murdering women who declined to wear the headscarf or who appeared too much in public. As security has improved, women are beginning to find their voice again, but enormous challenges remain. The constitutional clause allocating 25 percent of seats in parliament to women has still not been met; age of marriage is declining for Iraqi girls as parents, fearful of the future, marry off their daughters at younger ages.

Still, Iraqi women are doing their best to hold their own. Nearly a third of candidates in the March 2010 parliamentary elections were women, representing unprecedented participation and a substantial improvement over the 2005 elections. This flatly contradicted arguments that there were not enough interested or competent women to fill the quota. Women constitute a majority in five of the twenty-four parliamentary committees, with two women serving as committee chief and several more serving as deputies. Moreover, women parliamentarians have demonstrated better attendance and preparation than their male counterparts, and their presence in parliament seems to be a bulwark against rigid ideology since women are more likely than men to vote across party and sectarian lines. They also serve on committees focused on the practical tasks of rebuilding the country: Education, Labor and Services, Human Rights, Investment and Reconstruction, and Women, Family, and Children.

Women are also moving into other spheres such as business and civil society, often with international support. Development organizations like the World Bank and USAID recognize the potentially transformative impact of women's involvement in the private sector. USAID reports that 60 percent of its small business grants in Iraq through 2006 were awarded to women. Meanwhile, beginning in 2003, the World Bank launched its Capacity Building Training Program for Iraqi Women in Business. This in turn was in response to a request made in 2003 by Dr. Rajaa H. Khuzai—one of three female members of the IGC and later elected to the National Assembly—for international assistance in developing Iraqi women entrepreneurs. As the security situation improves, additional international companies entering Iraq can benefit from partnering with women-led businesses.

In many areas, Iraqi women are pushing boundaries and regaining ground lost over three decades of war and chaos. In 2009, the first fifty women graduated from Iraq's police officer training academy alongside a thousand male counterparts. The rank of officer is among the highest-paid jobs in Iraq, and among the most dangerous. In a New York Times profile of the first cohort of female graduates, the women admitted that at the beginning of the nine-month course, they were shy about physical training and handling firearms—but now “we are ready to do anything.” Many note the distinct advantage to the country in having more female law enforcement officers: they can handle many cases and problems that men perhaps cannot or will not. The class of 2010 enrolled one hundred women.

The question is whether such opportunities created by and for women will be allowed to continue. Tension remains between Article 2 and other sections of the constitution. Although the compatibility of women's rights and Islamic law is a matter of much debate, the fact is that many have used Islamic law to justify curtailing women's rights. This is why the form of Islamic law that will be adopted in Iraq is of utmost importance. Will it be of moderate inclination, as in Morocco, or tend toward stricter interpretations? This question is embodied in the contrast between Iraq's two leading Shi'ite Islamists: the aging Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who has some relatively progressive stances on issues pertaining to women, and the ascendant Muqtada Al-Sadr, who adheres to more radical interpretations of Islam's role in personal and state affairs. This question will only be settled over a long period of debate in fields from education to the political system to women's dress. In recent months, for example, clerics have been calling for gender segregation in universities, a demand Iraq's minister of higher education has so far rejected.

The international community can best support Iraqi women by keeping a spotlight on issues affecting women's legal standing. It should also continue investing in women's leadership training, higher education, and political and economic opportunities. It is time to recognize that Iraqi women can help turn conflict into consensus, with all the virtuous cycles that result.