Interviews Available:
Iraqi Constitutional Process Moves Forward, Women’s Rights Are Rolled Back
Contact:
Irene Schneeweis,
Media Coordinator
PHONE: 212-627-0444
EMAIL: media@madre.org
October 13, 2005—New York—Yifat Susskind, Communications Director of MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization, and Yanar Mohammed, Director of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), are available for interviews to discuss Iraq’s October 15th constitutional referendum.
Whether or not Iraqis adopt the current draft constitution, more than half of all Iraqis—women—will lose basic human rights that even Saddam Hussein’s notoriously repressive government enshrined in law. This is a major grievance of Iraqi women’s organizations, including OWFI, founded by Yanar Mohammed. They point out that the constitution, which makes Islamic law, or shariah, a fundamental component of national legislation, allows for conservative clerics to overturn Iraq’s longstanding secular laws that can protect women’s human rights.
The Bush Administration has cast Iraq’s constitutional process as an exercise in democracy, denying that the document threatens women’s rights. But Bush’s endorsement of a constitution that violates the human rights of half the population shows that the Bush Administration isn’t committed to either democracy or women’s rights. Increasingly desperate for an “exit strategy,” the US has traded Iraqi women’s human rights for political expediency, hoping that the adoption of the constitution will enable a speedier withdrawal of US troops.
Related Resources:
- US Trades Iraqi Women’s Rights for Exit Strategy (A MADRE opinion piece, 8/24/05)
- Iraq's Second-Class Citizens (TomPaine.com, 8/18/05)
- US Must Stop Iraqi Women's Rights from Unraveling (Op-ed by MADRE Executive Director Vivian Stromberg, 8/04/05)
- One Year Later: Women’s Human Rights in "Liberated" Iraq (A MADRE Report, Spring 2004)
Available for interviews:
Yifat Susskind, MADRE’s Communications Director, was born and raised in Israel and was active in the Israeli women's peace movement for several years before joining MADRE in 1997. Her critical analysis of US foreign policy and women's human rights has appeared in online and print publications such as TomPaine.com, Foreign Policy in Focus, and The W Effect: Bush's War on Women, published by the Feminist Press in 2004. Ms. Susskind has also been featured as a commentator on CNN, National Public Radio, and BBC.
Yanar Mohammed is the Director and Founder of MADRE’s sister organization, the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI). Through OWFI, Ms. Mohammed has established four shelters to protect Iraqi women from a sharp rise in violence since the US invasion. Ms. Mohammed has received death threats for her work to further women’s human rights, but she continues to fight publicly against both the US occupation and Islamic fundamentalism. She has appeared frequently in the Iraqi and Arab press, and has been featured as a commentator in major international media, including The New York Times and CBS Evening News. Ms. Mohammed lives in Toronto and Baghdad.
