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Kirkuk: Girls Denied Education
31.5.2008
By Samah Samad in Kirkuk
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Parents concerned about militia violence are pulling
their daughters out of school.
May
31, 2008
KIRKUK, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region.
Thirteen-year-old Huda Ahmed’s world was turned
upside down when her classmate was kidnapped two
years ago.
The girl was snatched by armed men on her way to
school in Kirkuk, and was only released three days
later when her family paid 40,000 US dollars in
ransom.
Fearing harm may come to their only daughter, Huda’s
parents pulled her out of school. Often depressed,
she now spends her days cleaning the house and
watching television when there’s electricity.
Huda envies her classmates and two brothers, who
still attend school, and says she is deeply
conflicted about her parents’ decision. She calls it
“an ugly crime perpetrated against me”, although in
the next breath, says she understands her parents’
logic.
“I’ll go back to school the first chance I get, but
for the time being I will respect my parents’
decision,” said Huda.
A survey released earlier this year by NGO Women for
Women International found that Iraqi girls are being
removed from school at an alarming rate.
Three-quarters of the 1,510 women surveyed said
girls in their families were being denied an
education,www.ekurd.net
and just over half said
the trend began following the US-led invasion in
2003.
In the north province of Kirkuk, where ethnic and
sectarian violence have broken out sporadically, the
directorate of education estimates that about 30 per
cent of girls have dropped out of school over the
past five years.
Experts said that a combination of factors,
including poor security, poverty and tradition, were
at play.
Daliya Mukarram, 33, a social worker specialising in
education in Kirkuk, said girls in rural areas have
always had difficulty accessing education because of
strict tribal restrictions and traditions. In the
1970s, the Ba’athist government insisted that girls
in the countryside stay at school until the age of
ten.
Yet today, even well-educated parents in the region
have begun pulling their girls out of class because
of the violence and instability, said Mukarram.
"The rates of girls leaving schools have soared
recently due to the deteriorating security situation
and the fear that [girls] will be targeted by
terrorists,” she said.
Huda’s father, 44-year-old Ahmed Latif, said he
doesn’t want her to attend class because she could
be killed or sexually assaulted, “which would be a
stain on the family’s honour”.
“I forced my daughter to drop [out of] school to
protect her from gangs and terrorists,” he said.
Her mother, Faza Mustafa, 39, said, “It hurts me to
see her so sad because she had to quit school. We
want all our children to be educated and get good
jobs in the future.”
Although both of Huda’s parents are literate and
value education, other families disapprove of
sending girls to study.
Nawal Hasan, a 41-year-old housewife in Kirkuk, does
not allow her three daughters – ages 9, 12 and 17 –
to attend school. Hasan’s mother permitted her to
have an education so that she could learn the
alphabet and write her name. However, she dropped
out of elementary school and married at age 19.
"I prefer for my daughters to stay at home,” she
said. “It’s better than if they go to school and get
hurt. Our family traditions do not allow girls to go
to school…Sending girls out of the house and mixing
with [strangers] will taint their reputations and
the family’s honour.”
Poverty is also driving some parents to pull their
children out of school and send them to work
instead, Women for Women International noted in its
report.
Nadwa Mahmood, head of the Al-Intisar girls’ school
in Kirkuk, said that while teaching staff have been
flexible about attendance and the government has
provided them guards since 2006, girls continue to
drop out at age 13 or 14.
Mahmood fears the consequences that a lack of
education will have on the girls’ prospects.
“The issues of illiteracy will have a huge impact on
the girls and even when they get married it will
have a bearing on their children because these
[future mothers] might continue the tradition of
their families and keep their daughters at home,” he
said.
According to Mukarram, girls who stay at home often
feel empty and depressed and develop poor habits
such as addiction to television and overeating,
Ali Ghadir, a 35-year-old writer from Kirkuk, said
that girls and women are losing what little
independence they had because of the security
situation. He said an entire generation will be
affected if girls continue to leave school.
“In the future, there will be a huge class of
uneducated women and that will affect their
children,” he said. “These girls will spend the rest
of their lives working in their homes and will marry
whomever their parents want.”
In order to combat the problem, the ministry of
education is sending out mobile teams to villages
around Kirkuk to educate students who have dropped
out, said Nassradeen Abdulrahman, head of planning
bureau at Kirkuk’s directorate of education.
The ministry of education has also developed a
fast-track programme to help students between the
ages of 12 and 18 who quit elementary school,
continued Abdulrahman.
Mukarram said that charities could also help
increase children’s education opportunities by
providing study materials for them to use at home.
However, while these solutions may help girls pulled
out of school because of security concerns, those
whose families do not value education will not
appreciate outside efforts to educate them,
maintained Ghadir.
“These issues are considered family issues and the
families make decisions,” he said. “The idea is that
organisations don’t have the right to interfere with
family issues.”
Samah Samad is an IWPR-trained journalist in Kirkuk.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
iwpr net
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