Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy:
Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq
Part V. Gender War, Civil War
"The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height
of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled
to places where its members were a majority and were
able to defend themselves. "
—Patrick Cockburn72
A Product of US Policy
Whether by design or incompetence, the US has instigated a civil war in Iraq. Remarkably, in a country with almost no history of communal violence, US actions helped transform a doctrinal difference between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam into a political divide. The US dismantled Iraq's largely secular government bureaucracy in favor of a system that allocated seats in parliament, jobs, and other resources according to ethnic and religious divisions. That system produced the so–called "Shiite list" that swept the first national elections held under US occupation in January 2005.
In effect, US policy forced Iraqis to compete for scarce resources on the basis of sectarian identity and reoriented Iraqi citizenship on the basis of religion instead of nationality. At the same time, the US armed and deployed openly sectarian Shiite and Kurdish militias to fight Sunnis and police Sunni neighborhoods. The US State Department has acknowledged that this policy has "greatly exacerbated tensions along purely ethnic lines."73 After igniting the civil war, US policies have continued to fuel the violence by giving one side—the Sunni–based insurgency—its raison d'être, while giving the other side—the Shiite–controlled Iraqi security forces—money, weapons, and training. In addition, the US failure to provide security has led many Iraqis to support whatever armed group promises to protect their families and communities.
Looking at Gender in Iraq's Civil War
In September 2006, The Los Angeles Times described the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army as "Iraq's two most deadly Shiite militias" for their role in sectarian violence.74 What the Times did not mention is that both Islamist groups are also notorious for their attacks on women. Indeed, the relationship between Iraq's civil war and its "gender war" has been largely overlooked. Yet, the two crises are deeply intertwined.
In the legal arena, the same provisions of the US–brokered constitution that most clearly codify gender discrimination (Articles 39 and 41)75 also lay the groundwork for sectarian violence. Six months before the February 2006 bombing of the Samarra Mosque that marked a turning point in the civil war, MADRE warned that, "the new constitution could allow un–elected clerics and Islamist politicians to determine a person's legal recourse based on her sex and religious affiliation [emphasis added]. Due to varying interpretations of religious law, tensions between Islamic groups with differing rules about personal status issues would be exacerbated. The resulting civil strife will further endanger Iraqis, undermine prospects for democracy, and foment a dangerous sectarianism in an already destabilized society."76 The decision to apply separate laws on the basis of sex and religion reinforced gender discrimination and sectarian conflict—the twin crises now plaguing Iraq—underscoring the link between women's human rights and democratic rights in general.
Iraq's civil war, fueled by US occupation policies, generates numerous forms of violence against women.
Though women comprise a minority of those killed in sectarian violence, women are targeted for attack. For example, on October 12, 2006, six Shiite women and two four–year–old girls were gunned down while picking vegetables on a farm south of Baghdad. The attackers, who police said were Sunnis seeking to intimidate Shiites into leaving the ethnically mixed village of Saifiya, reportedly forced two teenage girls into their cars before escaping.77
Sectarian violence has bolstered the Islamist militias that have been attacking women. Indeed, one of the militias' primary motivations for fomenting violence is that the resulting chaos causes people to become dependent on the militias for security. As The New York Times reports, "Iraqi Shiites see the Mahdi militia as their most effective protector against the hostile Sunni groups that have slaughtered Shiites and driven them from their homes. Shiites say that as long as the government cannot keep them safe, they cannot support the disarming of the militias."78 Even Iraqis who would otherwise condemn the violence and ideology of the Islamists have come to support them because they are the only force providing security.
Sectarian conflict has made domestic violence more deadly because of the proliferation of guns in Iraq. Because of the threat of attack, nearly every Iraqi household now possesses weapons. On October 30, 2006, The New York Times reported that the US military failed to keep track of hundreds of thousands of weapons it had shipped to Iraq, including thousands of nine–millimeter pistols and assault rifles.79 Women's rights advocates in other armed conflicts have noted that, "domestic violence often increases as societal tensions grow and becomes more common and more lethal when men carry weapons."80
Sectarian violence has entrenched the authority of conservative tribal leaders, many of whom condone violence against women (including forced marriage and "honor killing"). Iraqi women's rights advocates report a sharp rise in "honor killing" since the onset of civil war, which they attribute, in part, to the enhanced authority of tribal leaders. In early 2006, in the rural province of Maysan, police released an accused murderer after his tribe agreed to pay $3,000 and promise three women in marriage to the family of the victim.81 In rural areas, where tribal affiliations are strongest, many people resent the rule of the Islamist militias82 and have rallied, instead, behind traditional tribal leaders.
Sectarian violence has triggered widespread displacement of Iraqi women and their families.83 Nearly 1.8 million people have been forced to flee their homes, while two million have fled to other countries.84 Forced displacement is itself a form of violence against women and exposes women to other types of violence, including domestic abuse, forced prostitution, and sex trafficking. According to the UN Refugee Agency, many Iraqis are in urgent need of "shelter and aid items, food, access to water and employment."85 Within families and communities the world over, women's needs are often the first to be sacrificed when resources such as these become scarce.
The gendered dimension of sectarian conflict endangers women. Because of women's role in cultural and biological reproduction, they are often perceived as symbols of group identity. As such, they are specifically targeted in times of communal violence. In 2003, OWFI began reporting cases of "Islamic groups taking revenge on each other by raping women."86 In September 2006, OWFI reported that "Recently, a sectarian gang abducted a Shiite woman from the Alhussienya district of northern Baghdad, raped her and dumped her in a deserted area on the outskirts of the city. In retaliation, a Shiite gang kidnapped eight Sunni women from Rashidya district (adjacent to Alhussienya) and subjected these women to rape and torture."87 Additionally, Christian women in Mosul and elsewhere have been targeted for rape88 as part of a broader attack on that community.89
72Patrick Cockburn, "Iraq is Disintegrating as Ethnic Cleansing Takes Hold," The Independent, May 20, 2005.
73Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru, "Militias on the Rise Across Iraq," The Washington Post, Aug. 21, 2005.
74Solomon Moore, "The Conflict in Iraq: Killings by Shiite Muslims Detailed," The Los Angeles Times, Sep. 28, 2006.
75Article 41 of the constitution states: "First: The followers of all religions and sects are free in the: A. Practice of religious rites, including the Husseini ceremonies (Shiite religious ceremonies); B. Management of the endowments, its affairs and its religious institutions. The law shall regulate this. Second: The state guarantees freedom of worship and the protection of the places of worship." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp–dyn/content/article/2005/
10/12/AR2005101201450.html, accessed Feb. 7, 2007).
76MADRE, "MADRE Opposes Abolition of Iraqi Women's Human Rights in Draft Constitution," July 20, 2005, http://madre.org/press/pr/iraq072105.html (accessed Dec. 11, 2006).
77Hamza Hendawi, "Gunmen Kill 8 Women and Girls Working in Field Outside Baghdad, Then Kidnap 2 Teenagers," Associated Press, Oct. 13, 2006.
78Sabrina Tavernise, "As Trust Vanishes, Many Iraqis Look to Gunmen as Protectors," The New York Times, Oct. 21, 2006.
79James Glanz, "U.S. Said to Fail in Tracking Arms for Iraqis," The New York Times, Oct. 30, 2006.
80Wenona Giles and Jennifer Hyndman, eds. Sites of Violence, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, p. 32.
81Sabrina Tavernise and Qais Mizher, "The Struggle for Iraq: Daily Life; In Iraq's Mayhem, Town Finds Calm Through Its Tribal Links," The New York Times, July 10, 2006.
82Ibid.
83UN News brief, "UN Refugee Agency Increasingly Concerned at Surging Exodus Due to Violence," Oct. 13, 2006.
84The New York Times, "Iraq's Refugees," Editorial, Jan. 31, 2007.
85Ibid.
86The Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, "International Campaign to End Rape, Abduction, and Killings of Women in Iraq," Oct. 30, 2003.
87Houzan Mahmoud, "A Dark Anniversary," Guardian Unlimited, Sep. 27, 2006, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/houzan_mahmoud
/2006/09/on_the_occasion_of_24th_september.html (accessed Dec. 11. 2006).
88Anissa Helie, "The U.S. Occupation and Rising Religious Extremism: The Double Threat to Women in Iraq," Women's World, June 24, 2005, http://www.wworld.org/programs/editorialItem.asp?id=483 (accessed Jan. 31, 2007).
89For more information on attacks on the Christian minority, see the Associated Press, Nov. 13, 2004.