|
Shelved legislation curbing women's rights may soon
be implemented.
While women's rights activists worry about what role
Islam will have in the new constitution, they are
also keeping an eye on legislation that they say
could be used to undermine their cause.
The law, Act 137, passed in December 2003, would
have applied Sharia law to family issues - such as
marriage, inheritance, alimony and dowries - but was
never implemented because of protests from women and
a change of government.
Act 137 was meant to replace the 1959 civil code
governing family law, which at the time was one of
the most progressive in the region.
Women would have lost out under the new legislation
because, under Islamic law, in cases related to
family issues, women are often considered to be
worth half a man and, therefore, entitled to only
half of what a man would get in the same
circumstances.
Now women's rights groups worry that if conservative
Shia politicians fail to make Islam the "main source
of legislation" in the constitution, they will try
to implement Act 137.
Shruq al-Abaichi, a women's rights activist, said
that since the mainly Shia United Iraqi Alliance
list won the January elections, Islamists have been
trying to draw back women's rights.
"Shia Islamists want to make Iraq a second Iran,"
she said.
Wiqar Mohammed, an Iraqi women's rights activist who
works from Sweden, said, "Women expected salvation
after the oppression of the Saddam era, but the
reality is that Iran's followers will make us dream
of Saddam's times."
Iraq was largely a secular society under the Saddam
regime, but people have become more religious since
then. Insurgents have also encouraged extreme
Islamic views, and have attacked women who did not
wear headscarves.
Nagham Kadhim of the Iraqi Women's Network said the
Islamists are trying to revive Act 137 to force
their beliefs on Iraqi women.
"We are not servants for the Islamists to force us
to stay indoors like their wives," she said.
But Sheikh Humam Hammoudi, a prominent United Iraqi
Alliance member and head of the committee drafting
the constitution in the National Assembly, said
reports of women's rights being curbed in the
constitution were just rumours
- insisting they would be protected.
Some religious women, however, believe that
implementing Sharia would be good for women.
Uhood Ziyad, an Islamic women's activist in Sadr
City, said Iraq is an Islamic state so Sharia should
be applied, and that those protesting Act 137 were
either supported by the Americans or were Saddam
sympathisers.
"They are hired women - America is behind their
protests," she said.
Basim al-Shara'a is an IWPR trainee in Baghdad.
www.iwpr.net
Top |
® 