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Anfal Widows’ Sad Fate: Kurdistan
13.4.2006
By Wrya Hama Tahir in Rizgary (ICR No. 172, 13-Apr-06) |
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Women widowed by Saddam’s
Anfal campaign still struggle to get by nearly 20
years on.
Kurdistan (Iraq)
Zaineb Faris's cloud of depression has hung over her
for 18 long years.
Three days after celebrating her new marriage with
family and friends, the Iraqi army took her husband
away. That was in 1988, and she has not heard from
him since.
Faris is now 36 and still lives with her parents,
her memory of Sabah kept alive by a single photo
that sits below the family's television. With no
education and no job opportunities, she spends her
days cleaning their two-room house and listening to
the radio.
The local programming and music broadcast in the
Germyan area of Iraqi Kurdistan is her daily
connection to the outside world. Faris's father, who
is in his seventies, does not let her speak to other
men, even male cousins and certainly not this IWPR
reporter, who had to interview her in secret.
Even though her love for Sabah remains steadfast,
she is willing to remarry. But her father refuses to
allow this, as local custom discourages widows from
marrying again.
Faris believes that Sabah's body may lie in one of
the mass graves that are still being uncovered in
post-Baathist Iraq.
Her husband was seized during the Anfal campaign,
the notorious operation that Saddam Hussein's regime
launched against Iraqi Kurds from 1986 to 1989.
Human rights groups estimate that 182,000 civilians
were killed, but most of the victims have never been
found. Many of the bodies removed from the mass
graves across the country are thought to be Kurds or
Shia Arabs - whom Saddam also persecuted - but the
process of identifying them has been fraught with
problems.
As horrific as the Anfal campaign was for victims,
the widows must live with its aftermath every day.
According to the Germyan human rights directorate,
just one local town called Rizgary is home to 700
Anfal widows.
Approximately 27,000 people reside in this makeshift
town in Sulaimaniyah province, which Saddam's regime
originally built as an internment camp for Kurds
whose villages had been razed during the military
operation.
The town will commemorate the 18th anniversary of
Anfal on April 14. They had a rare chance to
celebrate last week when it was announced that
Saddam Hussein and six of his former deputies,
including Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical
Ali", will be tried for crimes against humanity
committed during the Anfal campaign.
"I'm very happy that he'll be put on trial for Anfal,"
said Nazdar Salih Qadir, 71, who lost eight members
of her family in the operation. "It will bring us
peace."
Qadir does not understand Arabic but says she will
get someone to translate as she watches the trial on
television - whenever she has electricity, that is.
Both electricity and water are scarce here, which is
driving some to protest against the Kurdish
government during the commemoration this week.
Most of the town's widows lead lonely and difficult
lives. Women like Qadir are highly dependent on
their families and the Kurdish government, which
gives the families of Anfal victims 100 US dollars a
month, a small patch of land and loans to build a
house.
Women in Rizgary have little education, and the town
has no economy. Marriage is an important means of
support for women, but for the Anfal widows,
remarriage has been next to impossible.
According to Islamic law, if a woman's husband
disappears she must wait for four years before
remarrying to ensure that he will not return. Iraqi
legislation states that a woman cannot remarry until
her husband's fate is determined.
In 1999, the Kurdistan parliament passed a law
declaring that those who disappeared during the
Anfal operations were officially dead. But the
decision was not made public until the fall of
Saddam’s government three years ago. Most widows
said they were not aware of it.
Gulala Aziz, who represents Anfal victims in the
Kurdistan parliament, said the government did not
publicly announce the decision because Saddam's
regime was still in power and there was no evidence
that the victims were actually dead.
But Kurdish government official Mohammed Gaznayy
said the authorities "didn't have the heart” to tell
widows that their husbands were no longer alive.
"They should have let us know," said Amina Kareem, a
42-year-old Rizgary resident. "Opportunities to get
married do not last forever."
While local customs bar most widows from remarrying
regardless of their age, Gaznayy agreed that even
without such restrictions, women still face problems
in finding new partners.
Those approaching middle age are no longer
considered marriage material, and the number of
single men their age dwindles. Polygamy, which
Gaznayy argued would be a viable way of supporting
such women, is illegal under Iraqi law.
Kareem believes she was a more attractive prospect
five or ten years ago, when she would have been
grateful for a husband and provider. At that time,
she had three school-aged children and worked as a
labourer, tending orchids for about 50 US cents a
day. She pulled her two boys out of school to help
support the family but she ensured that her
daughter, now 19, got the education that Kareem
never received.
Her husband's family gave her some money, which she
used along with the cash she scraped together from
her work, to buy a small house in Rizgary. She lives
there now with her daughter, her son and his wife.
Kareem is among the Anfal widows in Rizgary who long
ago gave up any hope of remarriage, and instead want
the Kurdish government to provide them with more
assistance.
Aziz said that she had asked the Kurdistan
parliament for compensation for survivors but that
she has not received a response yet.
Many feel the 100 dollars a month allowance that
Anfal victims receive is not enough to survive,
particularly for the many families who pay rent. The
government started giving them an extra 20 dollars a
month in 2003, and local official Dilshad Kareem
Faraj said he is working to increase this tenfold.
But some women say they are less interested in
receiving money than in building a future for their
children.
"Money doesn't do anything," said Aska Jabar, a
36-year-old widow and mother of four. "It can't
compensate for everything we've lost."
Wrya Hama Tahir is an IWPR trainee journalist in
Kelar. Kurdish editor Mariwan Hama-Saeed contributed
to this report.
www.iwpr.net
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