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Iraqi Kurdistan: Kurdish Women Resent New
Passport System
10.6.2007
By Koral Tofiq in Sulaimaniyah (ICR No. 223,
8-June-07)
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A law
requiring women to have a male guardian sign their
passport application angers women in Iraqi
Kurdistan.
June 10, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region (Iraq), A few
months ago, Rezan Muhammad Ali was invited to stay
with a relative who lives in England. Excited about
the prospect of a trip to Europe, Ali rushed to
apply for a passport so she could travel to the
British embassy in Jordan to attend an interview for
the entry visa required.
But at the local passport office, the 34-year-old
was told that to apply for a passport, she would
need a male guardian to support her application.
Ali shook her head in disbelief. "I almost cried,"
she said. "I'm not a child who needs to ask a
guardian’s permission."
Reluctantly, Ali asked her husband to sign a
document vouching for her and is now waiting to
receive her passport.
For years, the authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan have
overlooked a piece of Iraqi legislation which states
a woman who applies for a passport first has to have
her father, uncle or brother’s written permission.
In the past, women in this part of the country
simply applied and were given a passport without
fuss.
But the introduction of the new G edition passport
in March 2007 – which is electronically read and
difficult to forge - means that all passports are
now issued on a special printing machine in Baghdad
where the law is enforced.
Women’s groups in Iraqi Kurdistan are now
campaigning to abolish the legislation: they’re
gathering a petition and have taken their case to
the government.
Moves to introduce the new passport were set in
motion in January 2007, when Swedish immigration
officials said that the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm
had issued thousands of passports based on false
information.
The Swedish government decided to disallow the use
of Iraqi S edition passports, which lack up-to-date
security features and are easy to forge, as the
information they contain is handwritten and the
holder’s picture is attached with glue.
Other countries, including the US, the UK, and
Jordan, followed suit and now only let Iraqis into
the country if they carry a new G edition travel
document that meets international anti-forgery and
security standards.
The enforcement of this controversial law, which was
previously ignored in Iraqi Kurdistan, is not the
only problem created by the new passport system.
Staff at the passport office in the Kurdish city of
Sulaimaniyah have to take applications 330
kilometres to Baghdad.
They face many risks on the perilous journey to
Baghdad, where they wait until the passport is ready
before bringing it back.
Colonel Salih Osman, the director of Passports and
Residency in Sulaimaniyah, says that each month his
office sends an officer and two policemen to Baghdad
to process travel documents.
"We are constantly in touch with them because both
the journey to Baghdad and the situation inside the
city are extremely dangerous,” he said.
A further problem caused by the new system is that
the Baghdad passport office - which serves the whole
country - can only process 250 to 350 applications a
month, said Osman.
“Priority is given to government delegations and
organisations whose members go abroad,” said Osman.
Many Kurds say the system is open to bribery. But
with the application process taking weeks or even
months to complete, it’s no surprise that people are
prepared to pay extra to speed it up.
“I received my passport within two weeks after I
paid several hundred US dollars [in bribes],” said a
young man from Sulaimaniyah.
A Kurdish worker for a local NGO, which requires him
to travel abroad, said he had to pay more than 1,000
dollars to get a passport within a week.
These sums are apparently divided between several
people, including the driver who takes the
application to Baghdad and returns with a passport,
and officials in the city’s passport office.
But what has caused the greatest concern by far is
the fact that under the new system, women now need a
male guardian to vouch for them before they can
apply.
Women's Kurdish groups say the law discriminates
against them and is in breach of their human rights.
They point out that it goes against the Iraqi
constitution which guarantees every citizen the
right to travel both inside and outside the country,
and also contradicts Iraqi legislation in place
since 1959 which states there are no restrictions on
women applying for a passport to travel.
Last month, Nazaneen Rasul, 45, wanted to apply for
a visa to a European country to visit her husband’s
relatives, but, like Ali, she was asked to have
guardian consent to approve her passport
application.
"I'm a guardian to my kids and now I'm required to
have guardian consent for my passport," she said,
incredulously.
"Why is it I cannot get a passport at this age on my
own?"
Those women who don’t have a guardian to sign their
form are prevented from applying altogether.
Sroosht Wahbi, 36, a lawyer, had been sponsored to
go on a business trip to Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Wahbi, who has no father or brother and is not on
speaking terms with her uncle, was unable to apply
for a passport, and as a result, she missed out on
the trip.
"There is no legal or social justification for
this," she said.
Nasreen Muhammad, a Kurdish women’s rights activist,
said women’s groups have taken their concerns to the
Iraqi parliament, "We will never let women be
degraded, and we will continue to criticise the law
until it is abolished."
The groups are collecting signatures to put pressure
on the ministry of interior. Roonak Faraj, head of
the Women Media and Cultural Centre in Sulaimaniyah,
said in the first week of their campaign they had
gathered 1,000 names.
Faraj said they will take the signatures to the
Kurdistan regional parliament, the interior ministry
in Baghdad and the Iraqi parliament, "We want women
to have a united voice on this issue."
Osman from the Sulaimaniyah passport office
confirmed that the restrictive law had been in place
even when they were issuing the S edition of the
passports. "We were just ignoring it," he admitted.
He said they have taken the women’s concerns to the
ministry of interior in Baghdad, writing to them
twice and requesting that they deliver a machine
that prints the new passports to the Kurdish region.
Barham Salih, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, is
said to be working on the issue, and the word is
that a machine will be brought to the north this
summer.
Until then, Salih advised, women will have to be
patient.
Koral Tofiq is an IWPR trainee in Sulaimaniyah.
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