Jordan Times
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Strategy to ensure Iraqi women rights are upheld in new constitution discussed
SOUTHERN SHUNEH (AP) — Iraq's new constitution
must set equality between men and women, an Iraqi member of parliament said
Monday, as a US-based group warned that it was a “critical” time to ensure that
women's rights are upheld.
At a roundtable discussion held behind closed doors at a resort in the Dead Sea,
male and female Iraqi government officials urged women activists to work to
acquire wider freedoms before the final drafting of the constitution.
“Now is the time to ensure equality for Iraqi women and we must guarantee that
the constitution would do so,” said lawmaker Mariem Al Raes.
“It's a critical stage,” agreed Zainab Salbi, founder and president of the
Washington-based Women for Women International, which brought together some 60
Iraqi lawmakers, government officials and women activists to discuss a strategy
to protect women's rights under the draft constitution to be completed in
August.
The three-day meeting also gathers experts from six countries — including South
Africa, Malaysia, Egypt and Morocco — who have been instrumental in enshrining
women's rights in their constitutions.
An AP reporter was allowed to listen to part of the discussion, but not report
on it because some of the participants voiced security concerns.
Salbi, an Iraqi who established her nonprofit organisation in 1993, said
post-conflict periods present a “very critical era for women and minorities to
negotiate rights and their roles in the rebuilding of their countries.”
Iraqis “missed out on a lot of that because there was no organised civil society
after the war and there were a lot of reservations from the Coalition Authority
because women were not a priority on its agenda,” she told the Associated Press.
She said a survey her organisation conducted in January among 1,000 women in
Basra, Baghdad and Mosul found that 94 per cent wanted their rights protected
and 98 per cent wanted to participate in national or local councils.
“We've got to capture that optimism and we still have a window of opportunity,”
she said. “But once the constitution is drafted and finished and agreed on, if
we do not guarantee women's rights right now, it will take women 20 years to
fight the fights or to start from zero and get us to where we want to get right
now.”
She said the meeting was aimed at “trying to position people to think about
other (constitutional) examples — like Rwanda, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt and
India — and pushing some of these ways and push the boundaries in what we need
to think about in the constitution and how we can actually take it to the people
and how we can implement it.”
Thawra Jawad Kathem, another participating Iraqi lawmaker, told the AP that the
meeting gave her ideas. “Today's brainstorming sessions were certainly useful
and helped me and the others communicate ideas which will come to mind when I
vote on the new constitution.”