The Harsh Education of an
Iraqi Feminist
Euląlia Iglesias
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 16 (IPS) - Zainab Salbi was 11 years old when her father
was handpicked to serve as Saddam Hussein's personal pilot, regularly ferrying
the former Iraqi president from Baghdad to his hometown of Tikrit.
She recalls growing up in a climate of fear, with state-sponsored violence
against women a commonplace occurrence, and tensions high from the stalemated
1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
In her new memoir, "Between Two Worlds: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam"
(Gotham Books, 2005), Salbi says she and her family found their lives under the
Iraqi dictator's total control. Her mother eventually sent her to the United
States at age 20 for an arranged marriage to spare her from Hussein's growing
interest, but the marriage became another nightmare.
In 1993, Salbi founded Women for Women International, a non-profit that helps
women in war-torn regions rebuild their lives. Its most successful programme is
a sponsorship network linking women in 33 countries with sister survivors of
wars. Each month, participants exchange letters and a modest amount of money.
At a recent appearance in New York to promote her book, Salbi talked about "the
mass rape of Shiite women as they were deported to the border of Iraq". She
described how rape was used as a form of punishment under the regime, as well as
to blackmail women into joining the secret service and spying on family members.
"We had a 'People's Day' in which people could go to him (Hussein) and ask him
to solve their own problems," Salbi said. "And if he liked women in these
sessions, they were taken to other rooms and they were raped."
While the activist wants to attract attention to what happened in Iraq under
Hussein, she is also extremely concerned about the current situation of women in
the country.
"Professional, working, outspoken women have been assassinated and I know about
20 women who have been assassinated," she said. "On a daily basis, we are seeing
women's bodies on the shores of the Tigris and Euphrates."
"We have hair salons in Iraq that have been targeted for bombing," she said. "We
have female college students who are being targeted for kidnapping and rape."
According to a report issued in February by Amnesty International, Iraqi women
continue to live with violence and fear. "The lawlessness and increased
killings, abductions and rapes that followed the overthrow of the government of
Saddam Hussein have restricted women's freedom of movement and their ability to
go to school or to work," according to the report.
It says that female genital mutilation, honour crimes and domestic violence have
also increased in the context of general violence and lawlessness.
Salbi strongly believes that the world needs to pay more attention to what women
are saying, especially in post-conflict areas. "They are about 60 percent of the
population in post-conflict areas and they cannot be marginalised from the
decision-making power in terms of the discussion of about nation-building," she
said.
If not for the courage of Bosnian and Rwandan women who talked about what
happened in terms of the mass rape in their countries, "We would not have
changed international laws and the Geneva agreement and we wouldn't have
prosecuted rape as a crime of genocide," she noted.
In spite of the current situation in Iraq, a survey done by Women for Women
International found that 90 percent of women there are "very optimistic about
the future". In Salbi's opinion "this is a very important finding" and "we
should not dismiss it."
The survey also found that 94 percent of the women are "adamant" that their
legal rights have to be protected.
"Although the constitutional discussion is still going on, we have to protect
women's legal rights, not only for women's sake but for the country's sake," she
said. "If we don't achieve that, we could lose them to more fundamentalist
forces."
On the other hand, she also thinks that it is critical to use Saddam Hussein's
trial to "go through a process of telling our truth, documenting our past in
Iraq". She fears that "he is being indicted only for a handful of crimes" and
insisted on the opportunity to include his crimes against women.
"This is a very important point in terms of setting up precedents for other
future governments of Iraq, and for the society at large, that violence against
women is not to be tolerated," she said. "This trial is an historical
opportunity." (END/2005)
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