As UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Mr. Abdelfattah Amor has said, “All religions have a problem with women.” Every day women continue to be the victims of discrimination based on religion or tradition. This is a world-wide problem and by no means confined to the Middle East, but it is to the specific case of Iraq that I wish to draw the attention of the Commission.

In most Islamic states a system of gender apartheid rules, and in several, women are still being stoned to death for engaging in sexual relations outside of marriage. In Iran, the Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Islamic regimes are inexorably transforming women's homes into prison houses. In many states, the confinement of women, their exclusion from many fields of work and education, and their brutal treatment have became the law of the land. And the misogynistic rhetoric of the Islamists in the social sphere implicitly sanctions male violence towards women.

In these countries, Sharia law is used as a weapon in the hands of Islamic regimes to create a major barrier to the integration of  the human rights of women into the mainstream.

In Iraqi society, there is a strong opposition from many Islamic leaders to the creation of a society in which women can play their full part. The contribution of every Iraqi woman will be vital in the massive task of reconstruction following the years of bloody dictatorship and war, exacerbated by economic sanctions.

But the interim constitution, the Temporary Administrative Law, fails to give adequate protection to women’s human rights in at least three critical areas where women in the Middle East have historically suffered discrimination: 

• It offers no explicit guarantee that women will have equal rights to marry, within marriage, and at its dissolution.
• It does not explicitly guarantee women the right to inherit on an equal basis with men, and
• it  fails to guarantee Iraqi women married to non-Iraqis the right to confer citizenship to their children.

There is an increasing problem in Iraq of violence against women. According to the "honour" system, a woman who has been raped or abducted is considered to have brought shame upon her family. Under Saddam's regime, a rape victim would frequently be killed by a brother or father to restore family honour unless she agreed to marry her abductor. Many women are victims of this inhumane custom and practice.

The day after Saddam Hussein's capture, the US administrator, Paul Bremer told Iraqis that there would be "no more suffering". But Violence against women is increasing. Yannar Mohammed, chairwoman of the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), reports that since the end of the war, about 350 Iraqi women have been abducted. The few who survive their ordeal require protection from "honour" killings by their families. The OWFI is about to open the first women's shelter in Baghdad, with no financial help from the occupation authorities.

The US State Department criticizes countries which fail to curb human trafficking, but the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq has treated the fate of kidnapped women as an isolated phenomenon.

We urge the Commission and the international community to give all possible support and encouragement for promoting full equality to women, to implement measures to eliminate violence against women, and to prevent the killing and intimidation of women who have themselves been the victims of violence.