Global Women’s Issue
Violence Against Women in Iraq
Men in Iraq consider women to be the followers of men in both their household and in society. They believe women are not as capable as the men in decision making. Iraqi women are often limited to the stereotypical role of childbearing and managing the household affairs.
Honor killings, human trafficking, and domestic violence are a threat to Iraqi women and girls because of misconceptions in traditions and cultural beliefs. According to the UN Iraq 46% of girls who were aged 10-14 had been exposed to violence at least one time by a family member and 46% of women who are currently married were exposed to at least one form of spousal abuse. Of those married women 44.5% were exposed to emotional violence, 9.3% to sexual violence, and 5.5% to physical violence. Surveys said that only 2.8% of women are even willing to report the violence because they fear it will danger their reputation.
In early 2008 Rand’al-Qader was killed in Brasa by her father, who was assisted by two of her brothers. They killed her because she developed a friendship with a British soldier who was based in the city. Her father Abdel Qader’Ali admitted to killing his daughter when he was questioned by the local police. To this day he has still not been charged or tried. Leila Husseion, wo was Rand’al Qader’s mother left her husband and denounced his crime. She had to go into hiding. She left him with the support of a local women’s organization. She too was killed in 2008, she was shot dead in the street in Basra. The authorities have failed to identify the suspects. This case helps to illustrate the situation of women in Iraq. Women are faced daily with violence and systematic discriminatio...
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...dical and legal access, and help provide counseling for men and women.
In 2010 the Interior Ministry opened two protections centers for women in Baghdad, they say women rarely file complaints because they fear they will end up homeless and their families will reject them. According to the Huffington Post the center deals with less than 100 cases which were referred from court.
Here in Minnesota we have a program called The Advocates for Human Rights who bring awareness to the violence committed against women in Iraq. The program covers a large variety of topics. Their main focus is on helping stop violence against women and protecting human rights. They do not just focus on Iraq but all over the world. On their website you can get general information, news, facts, laws, policies, and outside resources. They consider themselves a forum for information.
It is important to note that Elizabeth Warnock Fernea herself is a brilliant writer, and her piece of Guests of the Sheik offers a very in debt analysis of an Iraqi village that would not be seen from most outsiders. How while Fernea concedes the fact that she is not an anthropologist she was married to one and the first two years of their marriage they lived in an Iraqi village called El Nahra. Since she lived in a village that has hardly any social contact between men and women, Fernea is able to give us a beautiful account of what the women’s life style, roles, and other aspects of a women’s life in an Iraqi village. While women are not treated incredibly badly there lifestyle was a lot different than the one an American woman would live. One of the primary directions of Fernea’s study are to show how the author could be credible in ultimately idealizing her culture and peoples in this ethnography. She uses her Self authority to convince the reader of that and her interactions with other women. The
National data gives us an indication of the severity of this issue. When 1 in 5-woman report being victims of severe physical violence (NISVS, 2010), we must ask ourselves if enough is being done to prevent this from occurring. From a historical point, there has always almost been a distinction from men on woman violence. Based on the disparity of cases reported, male inflicted violence on females is much higher and prevalent. When the perpetrators of DV, and IPV are predominately males, we can no longer dismissed this issue as a cultural, or
Trofin, Liliana and Madalina Tomescu. “Women’s Rights in the Middle East”. Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice Vol. 2(1). 1948-9137 (2010): 152-157.
Gender-based violence has been recognized as a large public health problem as well as a violation of human rights worldwide. One out of three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in another way at least once in her life (www.infoforhealth.org). The abuser is usually a member of the family, introducing the difficult problem in that the abuse usually happens behind closed doors, and is often viewed by cultural norms and legal systems as a family matter rather than a crime.
There are a few NGO’s that are trying to help out and some at a local level; they are providing, schooling, foster care, medical care, public distribution system supplementation, shelter and oher assistance to the displaced (Argo, 2006).
Moreover, several court cases and laws are made to oppress women. In Afghanistan, women must please their husbands (Graham-Harrison). Forced marriages have been used to secure political relations and use women as pawns. Court cases passed to favor the rapist in rape crimes spreads rape culture. Laws are being made to prevent abortions even in the cases of rape and incest. “It is a travesty that this is happening” (Graham-Harrison). Women haven’t been president yet. One third of pregnant women are killed by their husband (Valenti). Shiite laws oppress women. They must have sex with their husbands (Gebauer). But no one talks about this because its not men they are affecting.
With the limitations of women's rights in the middle east there are people who a for women and think they deserve the same rights. For example, a document that was pro women was document 1 because it was about how an Afghan woman was abused by her husbands and other men, but she never let that bring her down because in the end she said “But i am woman, woman, a woman a
Middle Eastern women need to stand up for their rights and get educated to reverse the notion that they are servants and properties of their men. Furthermore, they need to rise up to their potentials and prove beyond doubt that they are equal to men. This practice would lead the path for future generations to follow and protect the inalienable rights of women. Finally, these women need to break the cycle of oppression by addressing these deeply rooted beliefs, gaining the tools to fight back, and joining forces to make lifelong changes.
... and threats of violence against her. Fighting an unjust system is hard enough, but women’s emancipation is still on the wrong side of popular opinion in the still deeply conservative kingdom. And though progress has been made; the first female Saudi athletes at the 2012 Olympics and the promise of Women to participate in 2015 municipal elections, the progress is slow.
Examining the most common characteristics of a violent offender, simply being a man can be considered a risk factor. The male gender is characterized by traits like strength, and a natural willingness to defend what is theirs. Such behaviors are driven by male hormones, which are utilized in the regulation of human aggression. Though girls comprise a smaller overall portion of adolescent arrests, the murder of Reena Virk in 1997, in which seven girls and one boy brutally assaulted and drowned a fellow classmate , shifts focus back onto juvenile female violence. While male offenders, often choose to act as individuals; the “girl-gang” phenomenon has recently caught the attention of researchers. Institutes from Canada, as well as the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany have published studies, emphasizing increasing female violence and the issue of “girl-gangs”. After exceptionally violent murders, the public tends to be very sensitive and biased regarding these issues, influenced heavily by the media. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between ordinary myths and statistics. Theories such as the Liberal Feminist View, as well as the Power-Control Theory approach female violence as it being the result of a constantly changing society. To fully comprehend the nature of female violence, however, a combination of social, economic, biological and psychological factors have to be taken into consideration. Commonly boys use violence to solve a conflict and to protect their honor girls instead, see it as a way of emancipation, to prove that they are not the weaker sex.
Deeb, Mary-Jane. Freedom House. Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa-Oman, 2010. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=179 (accessed August 14, 2010)
Women are abused daily and sometimes, it gets so severe that they feel the only way to get out is to kill their abusers. In the past abuse was barely acknowledged. It was always kept in the home and not taken as seriously as today. It was not until the 1970’s that people started to realize what was going on behind closed doors. The pain and torture that these women endure, it’s no wonder that they may resort to such extreme measures. When women do come fourth, many times horrible things end up happening. If bruises and wounds aren’t bad enough, sometimes they are ignored. Unfortunately, it’s not taken very serious much of the time. Unless, the situation is severe, and even then sometimes, it’s still not enough to get the attention they so desperately need.
There are a lot of women’s human rights violations in Syria. According to the SNHR, the percentage of women deaths has dramatically increased in 2013, reaching nearly 9% of the total number of victims on April 30, 2013, and at this date, at least 7543 women including 2454 girls and 257 female infants under the age of 3 have been killed, including 155 women who remain unidentified at this date. The SNHR documented the killing of 55 foreign women. In 2013, the SNHR estimates that the number of rapes of women approximately reaches 6000, resulting in numerous cases in forced pregnancy. (Sema Nasar) This shows that some families will lose their mother and some husbands will have difficulty with their wives, and maybe there is population imbalanced. Also a young Syrian girl was stoned to death by Islamic extremists in 2014. Cause of it was a facebook account. Fatoum Al-Jassem, aged 14 or 15, was taken to a Sharia court in the city of Al-Reqqah after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants caught her ...
Arbab Khatoon, 16, was stalked and raped by three men. Seven hours after Arbab reported this to the police her father stabbed her over and over again until she died. His reasoning? “My daughter lost her virginity before marriage. Rape does not justify that at all. Arbab brought dishonor to our family and needed to pay for it” (Chesler). The “category” this murder falls under is an Honor Killing. Honor Killings have been seen worldwide and continue to grow in the amount of victims. Occurring mostly in Middle-Eastern countries, more than any other, this type of killing is based solely on values and beliefs. How does one value their reputation over their own wives and daughters? Honor Killings are unjust and should be tried as a hate crime towards women.
“Women’s human security rights in the Arab world: on nobody's agenda.” 50.50 Inclusive Democracy, 2 Dec. 2013. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.