KURDISTAN/IRAQ: Kurds in Baghdad Discusses Absence of Women in Iraqi Govt

The Kurdish house in Baghdad held on Saturday an educational seminar about Iraqi women and ways to involve them in executive decisions of the Iraqi state and activists in the field of empowerment of women, under the slogan (who is responsible for the absence of women in the Iraqi government).

MP Alaa Talabani, said during the seminar that the absence of woman shows the decline of democracy and pluralism as she is still marginalized in the political representation in the country, demanding of adopting the international concepts about the idea of gender in order to reduce the differences between men and women.

"Women suffer from a severe absence in legislative and executive branches, and the MP doesn't participate in making decisions even within her mass and I don't exclude any of the religious, secular or political parties, where the man takes the resolution as if women are away from security or economy or even the role of women themselves."

Talabani warned from "misunderstanding of the quota and standing at 25 %, which is intended to represent the women with that ratio as a reserved right and then work to raise that percentage of the involvement of women in the decision ... The UN resolution 1325 states on the involvement of women in countries emerging from wars as a minimum, by depending on the representation of women according to qouta."

The Iraqi parliament granted at its fourth session, which was held on Dec. 21, confidence to the incomplete government headed by Nouri al-Maliki that didn't include any woman.

While Bader Khan al-Sundii, the chief editor of the Taakhi (Fraternity) newspaper told AKnews that the low representation of women in the legislative decisions reached to depriving some of the female parliamentarians to obtain membership in more than four parliamentary committees, and no woman participated in the negotiations done to form the government."

Sundi called the leaders of the political blocs to implement the international resolutions that Iraq is part of it to involve women more effectively since the country is coming out of war and still recovering, "calling "the Iraqi society to get rid of the phenomenon of tribalism and define the role of women in political action and the excutive involvement in the decision-making levels."

"The secular and religious parties must open all areas for women and get away from sensitiveness, anda llow them to participate in the legislation and implementation," adding that "women should not be just a decoration in the parliament as many of them are kept away from entering even a women bloc."

While Faridoun Karim, the activist in the Kurdish House blamed "the recent ministerial formations that clearly marginalized the role of women and it is a dangerous indicator that came from many reasons, although Iraq was the first Arab country that gave woman a ministry during the rule of leader Qasim and she was Naziha al-Dulaimi."

"The political and social factors have met to increase the marginalization of women, and keep it away from her ministry so that some of the religious hard-liners eliminates the idea, knowing that more parties have religious background, while the secular ones became a victim of the religious impact that affect major parties in Iraq."

"The parties claim supporting women, but it marginalized them in the truth," adding that "the political decision may remain limited to the main representative for the list or for the political party."