Prior to the Americans and their allies ‘liberating Iraq, women could wear Western clothes, hold down high-paid jobs like computer analysts and travel freely. Now they can no longer work in such jobs and find themselves consigned to menial agricultural work. They are no longer free to travel, find themselves forced to stay at home and must wear the traditional black and the veil. Any woman who protests lives in fear of being raped and harassed.
The Iraqi constitution of 1970 gave women equality and liberty in the Muslim world, but since the invasion, women’s rights have fallen to the lowest in Iraqi history. Makes you feel proud to be part of such progress?
Prior to the Arab Spring Revolution in Egypt women held some sixty seats in their equivalent of parliament. Now they hold six!
2 comments:
The Middle East is so very complex and although I have travelled there frequntly and enjoyed doing so I cannot claim to understand the Arab culture any more now than I did when I first started going. I have met liberated, well-educated women but, sadly, the vast majority of people I have met are poorly educated and steeped in a religious history that has not changed in 2000 years.
The western coalitions that have 'helped' in places like Iraq have done so purely for oil and gas - nobody ever invaded a country unless there was a material benefit likely to accrue. Meddling in other people's affairs only ever leads to harm and pain.
Well said Monica.
Post a Comment