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In this issue:
·
Iran: Crackdown on
women flouting the Islamic dress code
·
Chechnya: Chechnya
imposes an 'Islamic' dress code
·
Egypt: New report on
violence against women
·
Palestine: Hamas
recruits women into police force
·
Saudi Arabia: Women
petition government for driving rights
·
Sudan: Activists try to
Improve women's rights
·
Afghanistan: Women
reluctant to seek marital redress through the courts
·
India: Chastity belts a
common practice in Rajasthan
·
Italy: 'Honour Killing'
spurs quest for justice
·
Iraq: Military
Prostitution and the Iraq Occupation
·
Pakistan: Islamic
militants beheaded two women
·
Holland: More reports
of honour-related violence
·
Jordan: Jordanian gets
six months for honour killing
·
UK: Police offer reward
to stop female circumcision
·
UN: Report on
Trafficking in Persons
·
Iran: Crackdown on
women flouting the Islamic dress code
Police will intensify a
crackdown on women flouting the Islamic dress code, a police
official told a newspaper yesterday, in the first reinforcement of
regular campaigns. Such crackdowns have become a regular feature of
Iranian life, but it is the first time police have pledged to
toughen up measures that began in April.
Rights groups have
criticized Iran for abuses such as crackdowns on dress-code
violations. Some 488 men and women were detained during the first
days of the crackdown.
·
Chechnya: Chechnya
imposes an 'Islamic' dress code
Chechnya's president
Ramzan Kadyrov orders female civil servants to wear headscarves.
Female civil servants must wear Islamic headscarves or be fired, the
maverick head of Russia's Chechnya region said on Tuesday, an edict
that may put him at odds with his secular masters in Moscow.
Russian law separates
the state from religion and gives both sexes equal rights. But
Kadyrov, who this year made a pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites in
ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, said Chechnya had different
traditions.
"I know everyone will
say, 'Ramzan declares (rigid Islamic) sharia law'. But I reply that
I am a Muslim, I respect Chechen traditions, and I am proud of
this," Kadyrov, son of a Muslim cleric, told a meeting of local
officials. "I repeat once again -- women must either wear
headscarves, or they should not work (for state institutions)," he
said. "You may say I make unlawful statements, but I will not back
down." Kadyrov said he had been "literally shocked seeing our young
women walking around in T-shirts and miniskirts in our city (Chechen
capital Grozny)".
Kadyrov said women were
the root of all crime committed in Chechnya because they were
inviting men to have sex with them.
·
Egypt: New report on
violence against women
This report on violence
against women in Egypt shows 247 women were killed during the first
half of 2007. (Land Centre for Human Rights)
"The Land Center for
Human Rights issued report No. (57) of the economic and social
rights series issued by the centre. The report aims to recognize
violence against women by monitoring and analyzing the content of
Egyptian newspapers during the six months beginning from January
until the end of June 2007.
Violence has led to the
death and the killing of many women in this regard. Attacks and
incidents of violence against women were published in Egyptian
newspapers during the first half of 2007.
In the beginning, the
report reviews the conditions of violence against women in terms of
magnitude, kinds, causes and impacts of such violence, and asserts
that the solution for this phenomenon lies in improving the civil,
economic and social conditions of human rights.
In its first part the
report reviews incidents of sexual assaults on women, which amounted
to (59) incidents of assault either from within the family or the
community. These assaults happened for various reasons like, sexual
assault, revenge or because refusing to marry the assailant or
rejecting the harassment of a person. These incidents of violence
have resulted in physical abuse, rape, theft and injury.
In its second part the
report reviews domestic violence against women which amounted to
(66) incidents. These incidents happened for various reasons like,
theft, suspicion in their behaviour, adultery, disputes, revenge, or
psychological illness or accidentally by stray gunshots. These
incidents of violence have resulted in killing and injury.
In its third part the
report reviews violent incidents resulting from family disputes,
which amounted to (55) incidents in which violence by the husband
has lead to the killing of (49) wives. There were various causes for
these disputes like, family disputes between husbands, suspicion in
the wife's behaviour, polyandry, the wife insulting her husband, the
insistence on doing things contrary to the wishes of the husband or
psychological illness. These incidents of violence have resulted in
killing, injury and burning and some of which has led to
imprisonment.
In its fourth part the
report reviews women killings, which amounted to (44) incidents.
These killings happened for a variety of motives like, theft,
exposing an affair, disputes over worldly possessions, refusal to
marry, neighbour disputes, revenge or psychological illness.
In its fifth part the
report reviews suicide incidents where women suicides amounted to
(44) incidents, where (37) women succeeded in committing suicide and
(7) women tried to commit suicide and failed. These incidents
happened for various reasons like, despair of recovery, marital or
family disputes, failure in education, deprivation from seeing
children, fear of being caught with adultery, grieving over the
death of a family member, or being charged with theft and mostly
because of the refusal of parents to let them marry the ones they
love or preventing them from going out. These incidents of violence
have resulted in death by killing oneself, poisoning, burns or
fractures.
In its sixth part the
report reviews health care negligence, which amounted to (33)
incidents that led to the deaths of (12) women as a result of this
negligence. These incidents happened for various reasons like,
medical neglect of patients during or after surgery, lack of
capabilities within the government hospitals, and increased dose of
anesthetize, leaving medical towels inside patients after surgery,
using bad blood bags, excising a patient's womb without her
knowledge or ignoring the health condition of the patient. These
incidents of violence have resulted in death, coma or permanent
disability.
In its seventh part the
report reviews one incident of violence against a foreign maid who
was a Philippine and not an Egyptian. The incident happened during
the month of May in Cairo, and was published in Al-Ahram newspaper.
In its eighth part the
report reviews official violent incidents which amounted to (6)
incidents of official violence. These incidents happened for various
reasons like, police officers attacking some women, fabricating
cases against women to force them waiver a place they own, some
women journalists expressing their opinion. Most of them were due to
police officers misusing their influence. These incidents of
violence have resulted in sexual harassment, rape, robbery, beating,
permanent disability, insult, detention and assault on the freedom
of opinion and expression and the rights of workers.
In its ninth part the
report reviews a variety of incidents against women which amounted
to (47) incident that led to the death of (46) women. Finally, the
report, in its tenth part, gives some concluding observations and
recommendations:
The report shows that
there was an increase of violence against women during 2007,
especially regarding murder and sexual assault against housewives,
and the growing numbers of men committing violence against women.
The report also shows that poor women are the ones more exposed to
violence.
The report then gives
some recommendations. The most important of which are:
• Raising Community
awareness regarding the elimination of domestic violence against
women.
• Guaranteeing health
services for women especially in rural areas and slums.
• Expanding the
umbrella of the social insurance, health insurance, and social
security for all women, whether working or non-working, as well as
children.
• Issuing a law to
protect women from domestic violence.
• Allocating pages for
women in the press that discuses women issues and problems. The
Centre asks all civil society organizations to work on implementing
those recommendations in order to stop violence against women in
Egypt and to improve their situation so that all the classes in the
Egyptian society can enjoy peace and security, especially women,
which constitute half of the society and all of the future.
·
Palestine: Hamas
recruits women into police force
"Females can't be
touched by a man, therefore we need women police. That's proof we
are a lawful country and not an Islamic state. It doesn't violate
Shariah law either." (AFP)
Women work as police
across the Muslim world, including in Hamas' patron Iran, where
women clad in black chadors are taught how to use guns, rappel down
buildings, chase cars and disable bombs.
All the women
administrators milling about outside opt for the conventional hijab
or the Saudi Arabian-style niqab that drapes the entire head in
black, with just a slit for the eyes.
For the moment, some
recognize that women's recruitment is a controversial issue, and
that few outside Hamas are even aware of it. Others say that some
people are scared to join, worried about losing salaries paid by the
Western-backed government in the West Bank should they cast their
lot in with Hamas after the bloody takeover. Others worry that
working for the Hamas-run government will cause them to be branded
terrorists by the United States and the European Union, both of
which consider Hamas a terror organization.
·
Saudi Arabia: Women
petition government for driving rights
A group of Saudi women
plan to give a petition to the government asking to be allowed to
drive cars. The organizers say the petition would be sent to the
government on Sept. 23, the Saudi National Day. (Arab News)
“We demand that the
right of women to drive is given back to us,” says the petition.
“It’s a right that was enjoyed by our mothers and grandmothers in
complete freedom to [utilize] the means of transportation in those
times.”
The petition, which has
been posted on different Saudi websites and circulated through
e-mails for the past few weeks, asks not only Saudis but also people
from around the world to sign their names.
“Women are in urgent
need of driving; it’s a basic need,” said one of the petition
drive’s organizers, Fawzeyah Al-Oyouni, a human rights activist and
wife of poet Ali Domaini. “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King
Abdullah said previously that it is not a political issue, it is a
social one, and that the government does not object [to women
driving],” she said.
Government officials
made statements last year indicating that the decision of women
driving is up to society and not the repeal of any law. Indeed,
there is no law in the Kingdom that explicitly states that women
cannot drive. The ban comes from a strict interpretation of the
woman’s need to be with a legal guardian [a mahram] in public.
Scholars in Saudi Arabia argue that allowing women to drive would
mean they might interact with unrelated men, such as police officers
or men who come to assist them in the event of their car breaking
down.
The women, who have
organized this petition, reminded other women that “rights are not
given or earned, they’re taken.”
On Nov. 6, 1990, 47
Saudi women were briefly detained while driving cars publicly while
demanding the right to drive. After this, the debate disappeared
from the media for a few years. In recent years it has re-emerged as
a topic that is no longer a taboo.
The petition is the
first action taken by a newly formed society that calls itself “The
Society for Protecting and Defending Women’s Rights.”
Al-Oyouni, one of the
founders, along with poet and human rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaidar
and social worker Haifa Osrah and others, said that the group also
aims to tackle other issues, such as domestic abuse.
·
Sudan: Activists try to
Improve women's rights
Harassment of women's
organizations by government security agents is common and the
government does not allow women's organizations to register as NGOs.
But female activists have found a way to beat the system by
exploiting loopholes in the law.
Eight years ago, the
governor of Sudan's capital Khartoum issued a decree that compelled
women to adhere to a strict Islamic dress code. The decree caused an
outcry because, among other things, it barred women from going out
after sunset and stopped them from working in hotels, restaurants,
and gas stations.
Asha El-Karib and
Fahima Hashim, two well-known women activists in Sudan, remember
that the decree galvanized all Sudanese women in the capital to
lobby for its abolishment.
"Women spontaneously
came out together and took the case to the constitutional court,"
Ms. El-Karib said in an interview in Ottawa.
Fortunately, the court
ruled that the decree was in violation of Sudan's constitution and
it was dropped. The governor was later relieved of his post. In
addition, as a result of continuously lobbying the government on
women's rights, Sudanese women have now been allowed a 25-per cent
representation in all government positions.
For 18 years now, since
a hard line Islamic government led by President Omar El Bashir came
to power, women's rights in Sudan have been significantly eroded.
The first thing Mr. El Bashir did after grabbing power in a military
coup was purge the civil service, educational institutions and the
army of anyone who was not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ms.
Hashim says women bore the brunt of the purge, with 80 per cent of
them losing their jobs. As the new government pursued economic
liberalization, girls' education and maternal health care were hit
hard by budget cuts.
"The gains that
Sudanese women had made in the 1960s and the 1970s were reduced
considerably," Ms. Hashim said.
Worse, this has led to
the creation of a culture where it is considered the norm not to
recognize or talk about women's rights.
Harassment of staff
working for women's organizations by government security agents is
commonplace and so is the confiscation of their equipment. The
government does not allow women's organizations to register as NGOs.
But female activists
have found a way to beat the system by exploiting loopholes in the
law. Most women's organizations register under business
associations, but then write for themselves constitutions that allow
them to carry out work as NGOs. But of late, Ms. Hashim says, the
government has been "politely" requesting independent organizations,
which are not under the umbrella of a state-sanctioned NGO
commission, to join the government fold.
·
Afghanistan: Women
reluctant to seek marital redress through the courts
"The number of women
who dare to file for divorce and separation is very limited, and
restricted only to Kabul and a few major cities," said Fawzia
Siddiqui, a member of parliament. (IRIN)
Jamila - not her real
name - was 14 when she was married to Habibullah, 31, a match
arranged by her father.
Habibullah left her
just three months into their marriage to go and work in Iran and has
not reappeared in 10 years. Jamila now lives with her in-laws but
feels cheated as she cannot get remarried and has not sought a
divorce because of the social stigma attached to such a move. She
feels trapped: “I have no future," she said.
In many parts of
war-ravaged and underdeveloped Afghanistan, where most people are
illiterate, conservative traditions and customs take precedence over
Afghan law when it comes to personal and family disputes.
"Abandoned women suffer
because the law is compromised by customs and traditions which go
against Islamic principles and Afghanistan's civil codes," said
Suraya Subhrang, the women's rights commissioner at the Afghan
Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).
Women are legally
entitled to get a divorce should their husbands stay away for over
four years, Qazi Mohammad Akbar, head of Faryab Province’s secondary
court, told IRIN, but the stigma attached means that in practice
this virtually never happens except in rare instances in the big
cities. Men have the weight of prevailing traditions on their side
and, especially in rural areas, exploit these to get what they want:
An Islamic tradition, according to which a man can renounce his
marriage simply by uttering the word `talaq’, is still common. "Men
send in divorce papers or verbally express their will for separation
over the phone to a judge and by doing so simply destroy the life of
young women," Subhrang said.
In Afghanistan’s
patriarchal society absent husbands also affect the children of such
marriages, who are disadvantaged and stigmatised. Officials at
Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs (MoWA) say hundreds of
women with absent husbands, or who have experienced domestic
violence, have received legal counselling and advice. MoWA also
assists women who apply for divorce. However, the women usually face
resistance from their husbands or in-laws.
"The number of women
who dare to file for divorce and separation is very limited, and
restricted only to Kabul and a few major cities," said Fawzia
Siddiqui, a member of parliament.
In most areas, where
tradition takes precedence over the law and where justice is thus
restricted, women often take drastic action: In the last six months
alone, over 250 women have committed suicide in the country,
according to AIHRC. "In the absence of their husbands, women
experience violence and abuse from their in-laws. Some become
desperate and see no option but self-immolation," Subhrang told IRIN.
Many Afghans believe
that wedding their daughters to Afghans - often older men - who live
in Western countries will ease their economic plight, but more often
than not these turn out to be short-lived affairs. "Some of these
men spend a month or two with their young brides and then leave for
good," Subhrang said.
·
India: Chastity belts a
common practice in Rajasthan
A Statement by the
Asian Human Rights Commission
A female passenger in a
public bus was found bleeding from her thighs and the fellow
passengers took her to hospital. At the hospital, the doctors who
examined the lady found that she was wearing a chastity belt. The
lady was bleeding from the injuries caused by wearing the belt. In
case anyone is wondering where this happened, the incident is
reported from the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan.
Rajasthan is known to
be one of the prime tourist destinations in India. However, what is
least known is the horrifying condition of women in that state. The
state, known more for its tourist attractions like the ancient forts
and the Rajput culture, is a graveyard of women’s
rights. The practice of forcing women to wear a chastity belt is so
common in Rajasthan that a website hosting advertisements of Indian
industries boasts about various designs of chastity belts, even made
from precious metals like silver and gold.
Violence committed
against women is very high in Rajasthan. Evil practices like the
demand and acceptance of dowry is widespread in the state. The
practice of payment of dowry is more rampant within the middleclass
society. Even highly educated women from prestigious institutions
are married off to strangers against their will. One of the well
known women’s
colleges in the state has a considerable number of dropouts in their
higher degree courses since their students are often forced into
marriages, often against their will, before they complete their
studies. Once married, the woman is expected to remain at home and
is confined to the four walls of her husband旧
house. Higher education for women is only considered as a quotient
to bargain for less dowry in the middleclass society in Rajasthan.
The Dowry Prohibition
Act, 1961 prohibits the demand and acceptance of dowry in India.
However, if the Act is to be implemented, and the practice of dowry
to be rooted out, what the state requires is good policing and a
criminal justice system that functions. But in the state where women
are treated as chattels, valued at par with cattle, the execution of
the Act has failed. One has only to look at the records of the
National Crime Records Bureau. Cases registered against the demand
and acceptance of dowry in Rajasthan are relatively low in
comparison to other cases of violence committed against women across
the country.
Criminal acts, like
verbal, emotional and physical abuse of women within the home is not
considered as a crime in the state. Even courts reject complaints
filed by women complainants on the ground that a woman does not have
a right to complain, particularly if the complaint is against her
husband or any other relative. This situation gives a handle to
criminals abusing women.
Women are often
compelled to engage in drug trafficking and prostitution in
Rajasthan. Women forced into such activities are abducted from rural
villages at a very young age, trained in distant places and later
forced into active service. Several of them who get caught by the
law enforcement agencies at a later stage in their
career’s end up
in state prisons. Those who get arrested remain in prison for years
without any recourse to legal or medical aid. Many are raped in
custody. Not being able to complain about their situation they end
up as carriers of life-threatening diseases and other sexually
transmitted ailments.
The commonly heard
excuse for this dismal condition of women in Rajasthan is the feudal
mindset of the society in that state. Even though it is true to a
certain extent that several persons in Rajasthan indeed entertain a
feudal mindset, the actual cause for the uninterrupted continuation
of violence against the women in Rajasthan is the failure of the law
enforcing agencies to maintain rule of law in the state.
In many parts of the
state, the law enforcement agency, particularly the police, are
controlled by the local political party leaders. Most of them,
believing and propagating their interpretation of Hinduism, promoted
by the Bahratiya Janata Party [BJP] advocate Manu’s
proposition of women being equated to a Dalit. According to Manu’s
law, the Manusmriti, women do not have equal status vis a vis the
men. They have no other right other than those that have been
granted to them by their husbands.
The local police are
controlled by the political henchmen who are in turn motivated by
the interpretation of Hinduism as dictated by the BJP, the ruling
party of the state. This is the cause for the blatant refusal of the
police to register complaints by women and women groups in the state
for crimes committed against them. Anyone who is adamant is referred
to the local political party leader or the party office. Such
referrals often result in further abuse, often in public, which
serves as a powerful deterrent against any woman or group, who is
already isolated within the society. The courts in Rajasthan are
also not free from a similar influence.
Continuing violence
against a particular section in the society does not happen in a
vacuum. There are several factors that facilitate such unfettered
continuation of evil practices. In the state of Rajasthan, a corrupt
law enforcement mechanism including a non- independent judiciary is
the key factor that has sanctioned the unabated recurrence of
barbaric crimes against women. The religiously charged political
ideology that leads the state administration is just the veil
covering an almost fallen system in which the women in Rajasthan
continue to be persecuted within the confines of their own family.
·
Italy: 'Honour Killing'
spurs quest for justice
After a Pakistani woman
was slain by relatives in Italy, an immigrant women's advocacy group
moved into action to make the murder the last "honour killing" in
Italy and also deflect anti-Muslim sentiment stirred by the crime.
(Women's E-News)
When the preliminary
hearing in the "honour killing" trial for the murder of 20-year-old
Hina Saleem adjourned in late June, Moroccan-born Souad Sbai was on
the scene. "We want justice for Hina and we ask that her dreams of
freedom and her sacrifice should not be forgotten," said Sbai,
president of the Rome-based Italian Association of Moroccan Women.
Then she and other
demonstrators outside the courthouse carried white lilies to
Saleem's gravestone in a part of the cemetery designated for
Muslims.
The defendants in this
case--Saleem's father and three male relatives--have chosen an
abbreviated legal procedure. The trial will reconvene on Oct. 25 for
a day of witness testimony, followed by closing arguments to be
delivered on Oct. 26. Saleem's father has admitted his guilt to the
police. Despite the confession, as yet none of the four defendants
has been formally convicted.
The defendants will
receive a one-third reduction of any sentence under the arrangement
with the court. If they receive life imprisonment, the sentence
would be reduced to 30 years. The sentence could be even further
reduced resulting from "extenuating circumstances" as defined by the
judge.
The Italian Association
of Moroccan Women is composed of Moroccan and Italian women working
to reduce gender-based violence in immigrant communities and at the
same time promote Muslim social integration. Vowing to be present
throughout the rest of the proceedings, members of the group portray
the case as a stab at its own heart. At the hearing on June 28 the
group bused women from around Italy to demonstrate outside the
courthouse and hold up placards saying "Io sono Hina," which
translates to "I am Hina."
The women were joined
by the imam of Turin, Abdellah Mechnoune. "Having Western customs
doesn't violate any rule in the Quran," Mechnoune said to reporters
in condemning the murder.
Hina Saleem was found
by police Aug. 11, 2006, wrapped in bags and buried in a shallow
grave in her family's backyard in Brescia, a city in the northern
Italian region of Lombardy, with a gash in her throat inflicted by a
meat knife.
Her mother, in Pakistan
at the time of the murder, acknowledged to police that her husband
had killed Saleem who "did not behave like a good Muslim girl."
Saleem's father--a legal resident of Italy since 1989 who worked in
a factory and also ran a kebab stand--was arrested Aug. 14, 2006.
Unrepentant, he told police: "My daughter was a prostitute, living
with that Italian. I killed her out of rage."
The prosecution alleges
that Saleem's family chose to murder her after careful deliberations
over her Western-style behaviour and refusal to submit to an
arranged marriage. Saleem lived with Giuseppe Tampini, a local
carpenter, and secretly worked as a waitress in a bar.
In May, Moroccan
activist Sbai petitioned the court to allow the Italian Association
of Moroccan Women, along with her companion Tampini, to act as the
injured parties in the case. Under Italian law, this meant that the
group could collect damages and could provide a closing statement in
court. Sbai called the offer to act as plaintiff in the case "a duty
towards Hina and the thousands of Hinas of this world."
The court, however,
denied Sbai's request. The judge said the murdered woman and her
killers were Pakistani, therefore a Moroccan women's organization
had not directly suffered from the crime.
Tampini, as the
boyfriend and cohabitant, will be permitted to act as a plaintiff
when the trial reconvenes on Oct. 24.
"Honour killings" are
committed against rape victims, women suspected of having premarital
sex and women thought to have committed adultery, according to
UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women. The women are
typically killed by male relatives in an attempt to restore the
family's honour, which they believe was violated. Such killings may
also occur to settle property or financial disputes. They occur in
Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen,
Morocco and other Mediterranean and Gulf countries, immigrant
communities in Europe and the United States, and in Brazil. Honour
killings are not exclusive to Islam. In the past year such crimes
occurred in a Kurdish Yezidi community in Iraq and in a Christian
family in Ramallah.
Honour killings are
also part of Italy's own history, where the idea of "honour" was an
admitted legal defence until 1981. Prior to its reversal, an article
existed in the Italian Criminal Code that provided a reduced penalty
of imprisonment of only three to seven years for a man who killed
his wife, sister or daughter to vindicate his or his family's
honour.
Honor killings have
also shown up more recently in the news. In London, a 70-year-old
woman and her son were convicted July 26 for the honour killing of
Surjit Kaur Athwal, who was murdered after threatening to get a
divorce. Both the woman and her son face life sentences in prison.
The verdict came a week after a British court concluded proceedings
in the sexual torture and murder of a Kurdish woman, Banaz Mahmod,
at the hands of her father and uncle, who both received life
sentences. A third man involved in the honour killing was sentenced
to 17 years in prison; two others are still at large.
·
Iraq: Military
Prostitution and the Iraq Occupation
Anti-war activist Debra
McNutt argues, "It is our responsibility as Americans to stop our
military's abuses of women, by ending the occupation." (CounterPunch)
Military prostitution
has long been seen around U.S. bases in the Philippines, South
Korea, Thailand, and other countries. But since the U.S. has begun
to deploy forces to many Muslim countries, it cannot be as open
about enabling prostitution for its personnel. U.S. military
deployments in the Gulf War, the Afghan War, and the Iraq War have
reinvigorated prostitution and the trafficking of women in the
Middle East.
Another major change
has been the reliance of the U.S. military on private contractors,
who have now surpassed the number of soldiers in Iraq. Public
attention has begun to focus on the role of these contractors in
U.S. war zones. Less attention has been paid to how private
contractors are changing the nature of military prostitution. In the
best known example, DynCorp employees were caught trafficking women
in Bosnia, and some indications suggest that similar acts may be
taking place in Iraq.
I am researching
whether civilian contractors are enabling military sexual
exploitation in Iraq, Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
and other Muslim countries. My research is investigating new
patterns of sexual exploitation of women by the U.S. for military
purposes, and how institutionalized prostitution has changed as U.S.
forces have been stationed in Muslim countries. I am especially
interested in the possible role of civilian contractors in promoting
prostitution of local women, or in importing foreign women into U.S.
war zones under the guise of employment as cooks, maids or office
workers.
I have come to this
research as a feminist activist who has long worked on issues of
women and militarism, influenced by women such as Cynthia Enloe,
Katherine Moon, and Saralee Hamilton. I have organized against the
sexual exploitation of Filipinas near U.S. military bases. More
recently, I have worked on the related issues of sexual harassment
and assault of women GIs within the U.S. military. I have also been
actively opposed to the U.S. attacks on Iraq since the Gulf War.
During the brief Gulf
War, the U.S. military prevented prostitution for its troops in
Saudi Arabia, to avoid a backlash from its hosts. But on their
return home, the troop ships stopped in Thailand for "R & R." After
the Gulf War, harsh economic sanctions forced many desperate Iraqi
women into prostitution. The sex trade grew to such an extent that
in 1999 Saddam ordered his paramilitary forces to crack down on it
in Baghdad, resulting in the executions of many women.
The U.S. invasion of
March 2003 brought prostitution back to Iraq within a matter of
weeks. The Iraq War has now lasted eight times longer than the Gulf
War deployments, and is marked by a huge reliance on private
security contractors. A U.S. ban on human trafficking, signed by
President Bush in January 2006, has not been applied to these
contractors.
The rebirth of
prostitution has generated fear that permeates all of Iraqi society.
Families keep their girls inside, not only to keep them from being
assaulted or killed, but to prevent them from being kidnapped by
organized prostitution rings. Gangs are also forcing some families
to sell their children into sex slavery. The war has created an
enormous number of homeless girls and boys who are most vulnerable
to the sex trade. It has also created thousands of refugee women who
try to escape danger but end up (out of economic desperation) being
prostituted in Jordan, Syria, Yemen or the UAE. Our occupation not
only attacks women on the outside, but attacks them on the inside,
until there is nothing left to destroy.
If foreign women are
imported into Iraq for prostitution, they would almost certainly
follow the already established channels of illegal labor
trafficking, as documented in the Chicago Tribune series "Pipeline
to Peril." For example, independent journalist David Phinney has
documented how a Kuwaiti contract company that imported workers to
build the new U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad's Green Zone also
smuggled women into the construction site.
Within the Green Zone,
a few brothels have been opened (disguised as a women's shelter,
hairdresser, or Chinese restaurant) but are usually closed by
authorities after reports about their existence reach the media. The
U.S. military claims that it officially forbids its troops to be
involved in prostitution. But private contractors brag on sex
websites that they have sometimes been able to find Iraqi or foreign
women in Baghdad or around U.S. military bases. These highly paid
security contractors have much disposable income, and are not held
accountable to anyone but their companies.
One contractor employee
living in the Green Zone reported in February 2007 that "it took me
4 months to get my connections. We have a PSD [Personal Security
Detail] contact who brings us these Iraqi cuties." Western
contractors' e-mails also suggest that some Chinese, Filipina,
Iranian and Eastern European women may also be prostituted to
Americans and other Westerners within Iraq. (Other reports indicate
that Chinese women might also be prostituted in Afghanistan, Qatar,
and other Muslim countries where it may be difficult for rings to
find local women.)
On leave from Iraq in
2005, Army Reservist Patrick Lackatt said that "For one dollar you
can get a prostitute for one hour." But as the war has escalated in
Baghdad and the other Arab regions of Iraq, it has become too
dangerous for Westerners to move around outside of the military
bases and the Green Zone. Contractors are now advising each other to
do their "R & R" in the safer northern Kurdish region, or in the
bars and hotels of Dubai, the UAE emirate that has become the most
open center of prostitution in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, any
prostitution rings in Iraq have to go deeper underground to hide
from Iraqi militias.
As observed by Sarah
Mendelson in her 2005 Balkans report Barracks and Brothels, many
U.S. government protocols and programs have been implemented to slow
human trafficking, but without enforcement they end up merely as
public relations exercises. Military officials often turn a blind
eye to the exploitation of women by military and contract personnel,
because they want to boost their men's "morale." The most effective
way for the military to prevent a public backlash is to make sure
that the embarrassing information is not revealed. It is not
necessary to cover up information if it does not come out in the
first place.
It has been difficult
for me (and other researchers and journalists) to get to the bottom
of this crisis. In his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Rajiv
Chandrasekaran observed, "There were prostitutes in Baghdad, but you
couldn't drive into a town to get laid like in Saigon." The question
of who is behind the trafficking of people is as hard to crack as
the trafficking of drugs (if not more so). It is difficult enough to
track the widespread illegal trafficking of workers to Iraq. But the
trafficking of Iraqi or foreign women for prostitution is even
better concealed. The prostitution rings keep their tracks well
hidden, and it is not in the interest of the military or its private
contractors to reveal any information that may damage the war
effort.
The fact that
information is difficult to find, however, is a reason to intensify
the search, and to make military prostitution a major issues of the
women's and antiwar movements. It is our tax dollars that fuel the
war in Iraq, and if any women are exploited as a result of the
occupation, we owe it to them to take responsibility for these
crimes.
I am currently writing
a larger report on my findings, and am seeking any input from
researchers and journalists, military veterans, private contract
employees, exiles and refugees, or former prostituted women who may
shed light on military prostitution in the Middle East, and the role
of the military and its private contractors.
My ultimate purpose is
doing this research is not only to help expose these crimes against
women, but to help build a movement to stop them. Missing from the
discussions about Iraqi women's rights is how the U.S. occupation is
creating new oppressions that destroy women's self-worth. It is our
responsibility as Americans to stop our military's abuses of women,
by ending the occupation.
Pakistan 'prostitutes'
beheaded
·
Pakistan: Islamic
militants beheaded two women
The bodies of the two
women were found by villagers on the outskirts of the city of Bannu.
A note found on the bodies accused the women of "acts of obscenity",
a term that usually refers to prostitution.
The region is a known
base for militants who want to impose their interpretation of
Islamic law.
Police said the women
were travelling in a three-wheeled vehicle when masked and armed men
overpowered them and bundled them into a car.
Senior district police
officer Dar Khattak told Reuters news agency it was the first time
militants had directly targeted and killed women in the region.
The note read: "We have
started doing this to end obscenity in the area."
Music and movie shops
in the region have also been targeted by militants. Militant attacks
in the north-west have increased since the army ousted radical
Islamists from the Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, in July.
More than 100 people were killed in the operation.
·
Holland: More reports
of honour-related violence
ROTTERDAM – The number
of reports of honour-related violence in the Rotterdam region
increased in the first half of this year. The regional health
authorities (GGD) in Rotterdam-Rijmond say they have received more
than 70 reports since January, compared to only 30 for the whole of
2006. The project leader on honour-related violence at the GGD
announced these numbers on Monday.
All reports proved to
be serious threats of honour-related violence. The fact that more of
this crime is now being reported is thanks to a pilot project
introduced by the Rotterdam municipality, the project leader said.
Since 1 January the
municipality, GGD, police and emergency services have been working
closely to chart out and tackle the situation of honour-related
violence. The close cooperation is already yielding results, the
project leader said. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," she
said.
·
Jordan: Jordanian gets
six months for honour killing
A Jordanian court has
sentenced a man to six months in prison for the honour killing of
his pregnant sister, a judicial source said Monday. The man, who was
not named, was convicted of strangling his sister who was pregnant
with her husband's child after the couple had divorced.
In handing down the
lenient sentence, the court said that the man had acted in a "fit of
anger," the source said.
Last year at least 12
women were killed in similar crimes in the conservative Muslim
kingdom. The perpetrators of honour crimes in Jordan are generally
close to their victims and often receive light sentences if
convicted.
Parliament has twice
refused to reform the penal code in a bid to end the quasi impunity
of men who commit such killings, despite pressure from human rights
organizations.
·
UK: Police offer reward
to stop female circumcision
London's Metropolitan
Police announced Wednesday that they were offering a 20,000-pound
($40,500) reward for information that brought anyone carrying out
female circumcision in London to justice.
The police said they
believed the summer period to be the "most prevalent time" for the
practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) to be carried out,
because the extended holiday from school provided time for young
girls to recover.
"We are being told that
the illegal practice of FGM is occurring to children in London,"
Detective Chief Superintendent Alistair Jeffrey, head of the
Metropolitan Police's Child Abuse Investigation Command, said in a
statement.
"We take this extremely
seriously and that is why we are taking this unusual step of
offering a reward, to encourage people not only to help us to
prevent this happening, but also where it has occurred, bring those
responsible to account."
The reward is
half-financed by the police, with the remaining £10,000 being
supplied by the Waris Dirie Foundation, named after the fashion
supermodel and activist who herself survived FGM as a child in
Somalia.
It will apply to all
information provided over the next year that leads to the arrest and
prosecution of individuals for carrying out female circumcision in
London. Female circumcision varies in its scope, ranging from injury
to the clitoris to the removal of the labia and clitoris, which is
subsequently sewn up leaving only a tiny opening.
It is done without the
child's consent, and according to police, only in rare occasions
does it involve the use of anesthetises or take place in a clinical
environment. Police said anyone administering FGM, or found to be
arranging for it to be administered, could face up to 14 years in
prison.
·
UN: Report on
Trafficking in Persons
UN: Report of the
Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons: Mission to Bahrain,
Oman and Qatar (WUNRN)
The complete report by
Sigma Huda, the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and Children, (25 April 2007) is available to
download directly from the WUNRN website.
http://www.wunrn.com/news/2007/09_07/09_17_07/092307_un.htm
-------------------------------------------
Committee to Defend Women's Rights in the
Middle East
Coordinator & Spokesperson: Azam
Kamguian.
Email: azam_kamguian@yahoo.com
Cdwrme@yahoo.com
Tel: + 44(0) 788 4040 835
Fax: + 44 (0) 870 831 0204
Website:
http://www.middleastwomen.org
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