The Tharwa Review

WOMEN TORTURED BY "MOBILE PHONE ABUSE"

Some have even become victims of so-called honour killings after being unwittingly filmed in compromising situations.
By Amanj Khalil in Sulaimaniyah

Salma trusted her boyfriend enough to speak freely with him about romance, love and even sex.

But she has paid a high price for her candour. Salma, who asked that her real name be concealed because of the sensitivity of her story, is hiding in a women’s shelter in the northeastern city of Sulaimaniyah, her body battered and bruised.

Her boyfriend recorded their intimate conversations on his phone and passed them onto her family through a friend when she refused to marry him. Salma’s body still bears the scars of her family’s response. The 28-year-old’s hand was fractured during one of the beatings from her brothers, father and uncles.

"They started to beat me without even letting me speak," she said. "They beat me so severely that I fainted several times."

She fled her home in Grmyan, a mostly rural area in Sulaimaniyah province, with the help of a women’s organisation and her young sister. Salma fears that she will be the victim of an "honour killing", if she ever returns.

Mobile phones have become a new threat to young women’s safety in Iraq’s northern region, members of parliament and women’s rights campaigners warn.

GENDER EQUALITY A DEAD LETTER IN TAJIKISTAN

SPECIAL REPORT_ Despite a raft of equal opportunity laws, women in this conservative society are often treated as chattels.
By Aslibegim Manzarshoeva and Jamila Majidova in Dushanbe

For six years now, Firuza has been trying unsuccessfully to get her house in southern Tajikistan back, through a succession of court actions.

In the Nineties, she and her husband were allocated a small plot of land in Kulob (also known as Kulyab) and built a small house there.

But dreams of domestic happiness faded as Firuza’s husband drifted into drug addiction. To get her husband away from bad company, she persuaded him to move to the capital, Dushanbe, where the two of them lived in a rented apartment for several years.

The house in Kulob was left temporarily in the hands of her husband’s younger brother.

When Firuza’s husband died of an overdose, she tried to return there, but her relatives refused to let her move back into the house.

In pursuit of her claim, Firuza went through the court system all the way up to the Supreme Court, which ruled in her favour but it had no effect. Back in Kulyab, her family ignored the ruling and no one enforced it.

Empowering women: a challenge and an opportunity

Karen Abuzayd

NEW YORK—International Women's Day is an occasion to reflect on the indispensable role played by women in every community and nation. It is a time to recognize and celebrate the distinctive contribution women everywhere make to the well-being, cohesion and advancement of human society. The unique place of women assumes the greatest significance in times of stress and emergency. In my years of working with refugees on every continent, I have witnessed time and time again how societies in crisis rely for their survivial and recovery on the innate strength, resilience and creativity of women. Regardless of how dire the calamity, wherever there are grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, - there is always a solid - even if unpsoken - conviction that the desperate times will be withstood and normalcy will one day return.

My work with Palestine refugees in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank has affirmed my respect for the role women play as custodians of strength, survival and renewal for communities under stress. Women are the bedrock of Palestine refugee communities, serving as a potent force for family and societal cohesion. Now more than ever, women are weaving the threads that form the social fabric of their community, by pursuing new opportunities in education and employment, advancing their civil rights and carving out a stronger and fairer role for themselves within Palestinian society.

As the UN marks International Women's Day and launches a campaign to end violence against women world-wide, it is especialy important that international standards of equality, non-discrimination, equal opportunity and protection for women are reflected in concrete ways throughout Palestinian communities. The global statistics are shocking: according to UN estimates, at least one out of every three women in the world is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Palestine refugee women should not have to suffer such abuse in their homes and places of work in addition to the travails of their 60-year exile and the brutal hardships of the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.

Women are agents of change

Haifa Fahoum Al Kaylani

London - Contrary to common perception, women in the Arab world have achieved significant advancement in recent years. There are female CEOs, female government officials, female professors, female engineers; women run e-businesses and financial institutions.

Presently, most Arab countries have at least one female government minister, if not more. In Tunisia, 40 percent of doctors and 70 percent of pharmacists are women. Laws and decrees that grant women equal rights to participate in local councils, in consultative councils and in municipality councils have been passed into law in many Arab countries.

Women in the Gulf have an estimated $40 billion of personal wealth at their disposal. In Egypt, women form 31percent of the workforce in the government sector. Most tellingly, in the Arab world overall, 70 percent of university graduates in 2007 were female.

However, the utilisation of Arab women's capabilities through economic and political participation remains low in quantitative terms, as evidenced by the low overall share of women in government – 6.5 percent compared to a world average of 15.7 percent. The Arab workforce comprises 25-30 percent women, compared to a global average of 45 percent.

There is no economic, social or political development in any society without women playing their rightful role in the economy and in society at large. International and multilateral partnerships have the power to enable, inspire and educate women to successfully participate in Arab societies, Arab economies and Arab politics. We are working and living increasingly in a world without borders – hence the exchange of knowledge and experience through intercultural dialogue are absolutely vital in achieving progress and development in all our societies.

Gender Apartheid

Young girls are left to burn to death in a school fire because they are not suitably attired to be seen in public if rescued. A rape victim is ordered to be whipped 200 lashes and imprisoned six months. Welcome to a few of the horrors of gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia.
Mona Eltahawy.

NEW YORK -- Once upon a time, in a country called South Africa the color of your skin determined where you lived, what jobs you were allowed, and whether you could vote or not.

Decent countries around the world fought the evil of racial apartheid by turning South Africa into a pariah state. They barred it from global events such as the Olympics. Businesses and universities boycotted South Africa, decimating its economy and adding to the isolation of the white-minority government, which finally repealed apartheid laws in 1991

Today in a country called Saudi Arabia it is gender rather than racial apartheid that is the evil but the international community watches quietly and does nothing.

Saudi women cannot vote, cannot drive, cannot be treated in a hospital or travel without the written permission of a male guardian, cannot study the same things men do, and are barred from certain professions. Saudi women are denied many of the same rights that "Blacks" and "Coloreds" were denied in apartheid South Africa and yet the kingdom still belongs to the very same international community that kicked Pretoria out of its club.

To understand the heinous double standards at play, look no further than the case of a 19-year-old Saudi woman who was gang-raped last year.

Where are the women in Middle East politics?

Rafi'ah Al Tal'ei

Washington, DC - Although women struggle to participate in politics around the world, the number is particularly low in the Middle East. Women have had some access to political office for decades, but progress, cheered on from the sidelines by many Western organisations, has been slow. What is holding women back from greater representation in the political sphere and what can be done to encourage their participation?

The results of the recent elections in Morocco brought the debate on female political representation back into the political arena. Only 34 women won seats in the legislature's lower chamber, compared to 35 in the previous elections, a mere 5% of all representatives.

In Turkey, women won 50 out of 550 seats in the Turkish parliament. Although this is still only 9% of the total, it is an encouraging sign since the number of elected women more than doubled from the last parliamentary elections. This percentage of female representation is the second largest in the region after Iraq, where there are 70 women in the 275-member Iraqi parliament.

HALABJA WOMEN VICTIMS COMPLAIN OF NEGLECT

Survivors of the chemical attack say they’ve received little or no medical treatment.
By Aziz Mahmood in Sulaimaniyah

Women who suffered chronic illnesses in the wake of a horrific chemical attack nearly 20 years ago say they have been largely neglected.

Of those who survived Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks against the town of Halabja in 1988, many developed ovarian or cervical cancer - and have since died; or suffer from depression or psychiatric-related problems. In addition, some became infertile, while others gave birth to handicapped and stillborn babies

“I have difficulties sleeping at night,” said Mahbooha Faraj, a 47-year-old woman who survived the attack. She now suffers from respiratory and eye problems, and believes that the attack made her infertile.

“One of my eyes is getting weak, and I have not been able to give birth,” she said.

Faraj, like many of Halabja’s victims, has been told that she requires treatments outside of Iraq, yet no one has helped her to receive medical aid.

NORTH CAUCASUS WOMEN PLY SECRET TRADE

Young women reveal how they go abroad to earn money fleecing men at nightclubs.
By Marina Marshenkulova in Nalchik

"There are a lot of us - girls from Russia and the countries of the CIS," Svetlana told IWPR. "Our main job is to attract and entertain clients and persuade them to drink."

Svetlana has spent the last five years in Turkey where she has been earning an income from a profitable line of work that is attractive for cash-strapped young women from the North Caucasus but is virtually a taboo topic back home.

Club owners hire them for what is known in Russian as "konsumatsia", which could be translated as the artful fleecing of unsuspecting men. The girls ply them with alcohol to encourage them to spend their money. It is not prostitution - and therefore much more acceptable to a lot of Russian women who want to work abroad - but carries its own risks and problems.

"Sometimes the clients come on strong and you have to fight them off. There are cases when some girls decide to go further. As a rule, the owners of the establishments prohibit this (paid sex with clients) so these girls have to hide the extra money they earn," said Svetlana.

She said that she spent half her earnings on maintaining her appearance, "If you don't look good, clients will leave you for [another girl]. And I can't let that happen!"

HERAT WOMEN THIRST FOR EDUCATION

Women in this western city are flocking to literacy classes, which are transforming their lives.
By Sadeq Behnam and Sudabah Afzali

Fatima, mother of five, sits in the tent, sweating in the heat. She is not alone: there are 40 other women with her, all of them busy with the alphabet.

"I really want to learn to read and write," she told IWPR.

Fatima lives in Dadshan village, in a district of Herat Province that is remote from the splendours of the capital city. Enrolling in the literacy course was not easy: in addition to coping with the demands of her large family, she had to convince her husband, a farmer for whom literacy, especially for women, seemed a luxury.

But Fatima persisted, and the joy of her accomplishment shows in her face as she carefully traces her letters.

"I want to become a teacher in my village so I can help other women," she said. "Besides, I can help my husband by bringing in some money."

Education officials in Herat say that close to 80 per cent of their literacy students are women. It is the first province in Afghanistan to show such a sharp jump in female education.

"Families here are more open, and the security is relatively good," said Muhammad Omar Ghafoori, head of the literacy unit of Herat’s Education Department. "We also have a large migration from Iran, which neighbours Herat and has a similar culture."

TRIBUTE TO ARIF ALI FLAIH

Violence claims IWPR reporter who helped establish a ground-breaking radio show on women’s issues.
By Susanne Fischer

He loved to speak French. When Arif Ali Flaih, 32, first arrived at the IWPR training centre in Sulaimaniyah, he immediately tried out the international trainers’ French. He had never been to France, but he was in love with the language and the country.

Flaih will never go to France. He was killed by a roadside bomb on June 11, 2007, when he was driving from Khalis to Hibhib, eight kilometers northwest of Baquba in the province of Diyala.

In Hibhib, al-Qaeda leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi was killed by an American airstrike a year earlier, in June 2006.

According to the news agency Awsat al-Iraq (Voices of Iraq), Flaih was on an assignment when the bomb went off. He suffered severe head injuries and died in hospital 30 minutes later.

The violence claimed a man who was always friendly, smiling and so infatuated with literature and culture that he inserted Kafka into his email address.

With his BA in French from Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad, he would have loved to work in the arts - but times and circumstances in his home country prevented him from doing so.