Women in the Middle East

For women in the Middle East, the struggle for equal rights has been fought and there have been gains and losses since the beginning of the 1900s. These gains and losses seem dependent upon the specific country, the level of unrest within that country and that country's interpretation of Islamic law. This paper reviews the history and current issues surrounding women's rights in the countries of Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Women in Iraq

Like most Middle Eastern countries, Iraq is a nation grounded in Islamic law, and the rights of women are defined within that context. After its creating in the 1920, Iraq allowed women much more freedom than most other countries in the region, and in the 1930s, women collected donations and provided for soldiers in Iraq's struggle for independence from Britain (Brown and Romano 2006). Prominent women of the time affected the national laws and in 1959 helped to pass the Personal Status Law which removed judicial power from the ulama with respect to divorce, and into the control of civil administration. Women now had equal inheritance rights to men, a limit was placed on polygamy and women were granted more rights with respect to divorce and child custody. (Brown and Romano 2006) This was a victory in removing some law affecting women from the rule of Islamic law.

In 1968 with the takeover of the Ba'ath party, women were now allowed into universities, but inheritance rights were reduced to half that of a man's. When the 1970 provisional constitution was drafted, men and women were declared equal under the law and literacy rates for women increased. Unfortunately even with these slight increases for Iraqi women Saddam used women as a tool to extract information from those who rebelled. As Brown and Romano (2006) state, one preferred regime tactic involved sending videos of female family members being raped by secret police.

After the first Gulf War, Saddam tried to enlist support from neighboring Muslim countries and in order to do that he adopted a traditional Islamic interpretation of the Quran in which women's rights were significantly reduced. Traditional polygamy was reinstated, and women again lost their previously won rights in matters of divorce, child rearing and inheritance. Women were pushed out of jobs in the public sector and placed into more traditional roles in the home and as poverty grew within the country, girls were first to be kept back from classes by their families. The literacy rate, which had been 65 percent in 1987, had fallen to 25 percent by the end of 2000 (Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq [UNOCHR] 2003). Incapable of changing their situations with in the law, Iraqi women saw their rights disappear along with their quality of life (Brown and Romano 2006).

In the aftermath of the Iraq invasion of 2003, women saw an effort to remedy their previously lost rights in the formation of an interim government, but found it difficult to put into practice in a country so unstable, unsafe and violent. Originally, women believed they would have greater freedoms and rights with the removal of Saddam Hussein, but as Brown and Romano (2006) state, "Americans are not the ultimate harbingers of freedom from fear. . . offering greater rights and opportunities to women plays second fiddle to other priorities, such as that of stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq". While this may seem to be an attitude detrimental to the advancement of women in the region, by stabilizing the region, women will be put into a better position to gain greater rights by gaining ground through political avenues. In February of 2004, the interim constitution was again debated and Islamic law was determined not to interpret laws on marriage and inheritance and the interim government achieved an 18 percent representation by females Brown and Romano 2006). The organization United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is also stepping in to hold conferences for Iraqi women interested in joining the workforce (Brown and Romano 2006).

All of the above initiatives taken since the 2003 invasion are set up to help Iraqi women gain greater equality in the newly formed country. Unfortunately, there are also large obstacles to initiatives including the violence and instability of the region and the cultural roots of Islamic law and the role of women in a Muslim society. As Suad Joseph (1996) says, "Issues of gender and citizenship . . . are not limited to legal issues, but also raise issues of practice, specifically the practices that comprise governance. What the law affords in practice is often quite different." In central and southern Iraq, where the bulk of the violence and unrest has taken place, women are afraid to come out of their homes. There is "fierce resistance . . . violence and general lawlessness hamper any possible progress . . .