BAGHDAD, 24 July 2005 — A short phrase which may or not be in the new Iraqi constitution has turned into a behind-the-scenes battleground over women’s rights that activists say could define what kind of society Iraq will become.
Whatever else was wrong with Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s secular nationalist Baath Party, it provided some of the strongest protections for women’s rights in the Arab world.
But women’s activists say they fear the new authorities will give more priority to religious law, stripping women of rights — above all, of the right to resort to civil courts to protect themselves in divorce and child custody cases. “We want to establish a country with a law that is devoted to equality between men and women,” lawyer and women’s rights activist Tameem Al-Azawi told Reuters. “We fear the new constitution would not let courts give women their rights.” Iraqi lawmakers have been busy drafting a new constitution which they are due to deliver on Aug. 15 for the country to vote on in a referendum in October.
So far no drafts have officially been made public.
But while negotiations go on behind closed doors, women’s groups have released what they say is a version that contained language revoking women’s right to contest divorce cases in court. Instead, family disputes would be decided by religious law within a family’s community.
“We want to see a divorce law similar to that in the West, which is not religious and applies to everyone regardless of their sect,” said leading women’s activist Suham Al-Hassani.
The leaked draft led to a demonstration by women’s activists in Baghdad, a story in the New York Times that became a major talking point in Washington, and stern words from US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
“I personally believe that any country that does not include half of their population in a reasonable way is making a terrible mistake,” Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing.
Officials involved in the drafting were quick to offer reassurance that they had no such plans.
Humam Hamoudi, head of the constitutional drafting committee, told a news conference the question of which courts would decide family cases would be decided by Parliament under regular laws and not by the constitution itself.
Hamoudi said the role of Islam in the constitution would be similar to that in Iraq’s current Temporary Administrative Law, or TAL, drafting of which was overseen by the United States and Britain, which the constitution is intended to replace.
The TAL explicitly excluded a line — called article 137 — that would have turned over family matters to religious courts.
