The War against Iraqi women

By Zeina Zaatari

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Iraqi women's organizations and international observers point to an
escalating war against women in Iraq, aided by the widespread chaos and
lawlessness under United States occupation. In addition to violence by
American troops inside and outside of prisons, women in Iraq face daily
violence from militants under the guise of religion and "liberation."

In Iraq's second largest city, Basra, a stronghold of conservative Shiite
groups, as many as 133 women were killed last year for violating "Islamic
teachings" and in so-called "honor killings," according to the United
Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The methods
are brutal evidence of a backlash by previously subdued tribal forces
that have
been unleashed by the occupation: women strangled and beheaded, and their
hands, arms and legs chopped off.