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Human chattel
3.5.2007
By Houzan Mahmoud |
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May 3, 2007
Every year hundreds of women in Iraq and Kurdistan,
such as Doa, 17, are
being brutally murdered. It's time we all took
notice.
Once again the murderers of women in Kurdistan in
Iraq have committed a crime. This incident, however,
was uniquely barbaric. On April 7, 2007, Doa - a
sweet, 17-year-old girl - was dragged out in broad
daylight and publicly stoned to death.
This girl's "crime" was to fall in love with an Arab
Muslim man. Doa herself had a background in the
Kurdish Yazidi faith. Thus, according to the bigoted
values of this belief system, she was not allowed to
marry someone from outside her "tribe and religious
sect".
Reports suggest that Doa had left her family home
three months earlier, to live with the man she
loved. She gave up her religion, ethnic identity and
even her family to go and share love, passion and
her life with another.
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Houzan Mahmoud is a London-based activist with the
Organisations of Women's Freedom in Kurdistan &
Iraq. Born in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1973. |
This was a brave
decision. She took it in a heavily religious and
patriarchal society that considers women as private
possessions and inferior sub-humans.
Men of the Yazidi faith in Bashiqa, near Mosel,
organised the handover of Doa from the place where
she was secretly living with her boyfriend. They
gathered in a crowd of nearly 1,000 men, at the
scene of the planned execution.
They dragged her out and tore her skirt in order to
shame and humiliate her. Men pushed her to the
ground and kicked her in the back and stomach.
Others repeatedly battered her head with a large
stone. Her face was covered in blood and - despite
her state of shock - she cried out for help. Not one
of these men had enough humanity to step in and
prevent this outrage. They became a pack of angry
monsters.
In fact, hundreds of them celebrated. They whistled
and some filmed her grisly death, to be uploaded
later. She was stoned, kicked and battered until she
died in agony. And as her sweet heart - full of life
and love - stopped beating, these men rejoiced in
the cleansing of the "shame" from the supposed
honour of Yazidis.
This "cleansing" was a horrific, inhumane and
disgraceful murder. Now Islamist terror groups are
cynically using this crime for their own purposes.
They have been promising to retaliate and kill
Yazidis. The truth is more sordid. Soon after Doa's
stoning, 21 Yazidi workers from a textile factory
were killed by Islamists on their way back from work
- another horror and a cowardly outrage.
Women in Iraq and Kurdistan are victimised even in
the way death finds them. Each year, hundreds of
women are being murdered deliberately by their
husbands, brothers, fathers, or - as in Doa's case -
by men from their own faith. Women are less than
commodities in Kurdish society.
The patriarchal and tribal nature of the authorities
in this region has created a climate where violence
and degradation against women are almost accepted
daily practices. Civil and individual freedoms
cannot exist when one's gender means that one has no
right to live as an autonomous human being, when one
is not a individual in a community, but the chattel
of others, a symbol of male "honour", that can be
soiled and disposed of, like a rag.
In such a society, sexual purity is a condition for
women's survival. Falling in love according to one's
own inclinations is forbidden. Although this is not
explicitly enshrined in law, the daily incidence of
women's suicide, murder and stoning are evidence
enough of the true state of affairs. These silenced
voices scream out that women find this barbarism
intolerable. That they want to break the invisible
sanctions on their lives, set themselves free to
experience love ... even if only once in their
lives.
The stories of thousands of women who have been
brutally killed in this region over a period of
years are salutary examples. They crossed a line.
They dared to express some individual freedom and a
measure of choice over their own sexuality. They
even had the temerity to choose a sexual partner
according to their own desires.
I condemn these brutalities against women and have
dedicated my life to fight for their liberation. I
feel a great bitterness that many of those young
women who wanted to rebel and protest against
tribal, religious and patriarchal barriers, are now
dead. Doa, and many others who had their lives taken
from them, are alive in our hearts.
The only solution is the continuing global fight for
our rights and the solidarity of our friends, our
brothers and sisters internationally. We have
launched an international campaign to ensure the
criminals are punished and to outlaw all kinds of
violence against women in Kurdistan.
We need international support and your continuing
solidarity to win this battle you can
sign our petition here.
Please publicise this appeal and forward it far and
wide. It needs to reach millions of people so that
the world learns that this is what women endure when
they chose to be free and live with dignity.
* Houzan Mahmoud is a London-based activist with
the Organisations of Women's Freedom in Kurdistan &
Iraq. Born in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1973.
guardian co.uk
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