The Hindu : Another kind of prison

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 26, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Another kind of prison

By Kalpana Sharma

Women in the Iraqi capital do not feel secure enough even to venture out for routine chores such as shopping.

ON MAY 22, 2003, a nine-year-old Iraqi girl was sitting on the stairs of her building in Baghdad. The "war" had ended; the battle for the streets had begun. It was four in the afternoon. A man dragged her to a neighbouring building, raped her and sent her back home. This is only one of several heart-breaking stories recorded by Human Rights Watch in a devastating report released this month titled, "Climate of fear: sexual violence and abduction of women and girls in Baghdad." The real price of an unjustified war is being paid by the most innocent — girls as young as the nine-year-old. While the death of every American soldier killed or injured in Iraq in the last three months has merited a mention in the news, there is practically no reporting on the consequences of destroying a functioning society and reducing it to a frightening level of lawlessness.

The HRW documents a startling increase in the number of daylight abductions and rape of women and young girls. Yet the Iraqi police have few records because the majority of the cases go unreported. Even if someone wants to report, who will listen? The police function with little equipment, few experienced officers, and practically no power to follow up and investigate. There are no Iraqi women police either. Many victims are afraid to report, or even admit, that they were raped because they are afraid of censure from their families. These women have been beaten and victimised for "shaming" the family.

One Iraqi police officer told the HRW investigators: "Some gangs specialise in kidnapping girls, they sell them to the Gulf countries. This happened before the war too, but now it is worse, they can get them in and out without passports. We have so many other cases, we have no authority to solve or investigate them.''

In broad daylight, women are abducted and nothing is done about it. "This never happened before the war," many Iraqis told HRW. The mother of a victim burst out, "we want security. You can't walk the streets alone. We need security, then freedom. My husband told the Americans, you will make us say we prefer Saddam Hussein's rule, because then it was safe, even though everyone hated him. Even though he was oppressive, at least it was safe."

This, then, is the irony of the situation prevailing in the Iraq ruled by the Americans. Despite Saddam Hussein's crimes, Iraqi women had made noteworthy gains compared to their counterparts in other Arab countries. They were educated, did not have to conform to any dress code and they were prominent in many professions and in Government.

Indeed, one of those heading Iraq's alleged chemical weapons programme was a woman. Yet today many of these women cannot go back to work unless they are assured safe passage. Many of them are being bullied into wearing a headscarf. They are afraid to send their daughters to school.

A survey by the U.K.-based `Save the Children' of three schools in Baghdad noted a 50 per cent drop in school attendance by girls because of fear of kidnapping. Although the attendance has improved, families have to send girls in groups with a male attendant and usually post someone permanently outside the school through the day. Women in the Iraqi capital do not feel secure enough even to venture out to do routine chores such as shopping. Worst still, they cannot seek timely medical help, not just after an incident of sexual violence, but even when their problem is more ordinary. Often, female staff are absent at the hospitals because they too are afraid to venture out. Thus women patients have to either accept being examined by a male doctor or come back another day. In the case of the nine-year-old victim, the Forensic Institute turned her away. Fortunately, a journalist was interviewing the director of the institute when the incident happened. She was able to find a U.S. military doctor who treated the little girl.

At the moment, the criminal justice system is non-functioning. But even if a rapist or a kidnapper is caught, under Iraqi law he can escape punishment if he marries the victim. HRW fears that there could be many forced marriages that will allow the family to preserve its "honour" and the perpetrator of the crime to escape punishment, while the victim will be condemned to life-long torture at the hands of a felon. The cost of this continuing lawlessness will be borne by Iraqi women for some time to come. For every nine-year-old who is abducted and raped, there will be thousands of young girls who will be denied their right to education and self-growth. Is this what "liberation" is all about?

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