Andrea Buffa, writing in TomPaine.com poses this critical question:
"Remember how the U.S. invasion of Iraq was supposed to liberate the women?"
Buffa goes on to answer her own question by detailing the plight of women in Iraq caught up in the War. It's not a pretty picture and on another level, once again shows how the Invasion of Iraq [remember "Shock and Awe" in the bombing of Baghdad?] has done so much "damage" to the now war-torn country. On[y today news reports out of Iraq speaks of chemicals being used by so-called insurgents.
"Normally not the subject of news stories, Iraqi women made headlines in three sensational stories last month. First there was the Sunni woman who accused Iraqi police officers of raping her. Since most of the Iraqi police are Shia, the issue became a sectarian row, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki firing a top Sunni official who had the audacity to say the rape charge should be investigated.
In the same month, a woman suicide bomber killed more than 41 people at a college in Baghdad, one of the largest attacks by a woman suicide bomber since the war began. And finally, there is the ongoing story of four women who face the death penalty in Iraq, at least one of whom could be executed any day now. Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, have questioned these women's trials for their lack of transparency and fairness, as well as a potential absence of legal representation.
Rapes, bombings, death sentences, and a discriminatory legal system; it is one of the unspoken facts of militarism that women often become the spoils of war. The Iraq war has been a disaster in many ways, but none so extreme as what it's done to Iraqi women.
Women not only suffer what everyone in Iraqi society suffers - the absence of security, collapse of the country's infrastructure, a health care system in tatters, and high levels of poverty and unemployment. They also suffer gender-based violence and increased social conservatism. The constant violence - looting, assault, kidnapping, rape or death at the hands of suicide bombers, militias, foreign troops, Iraqi police, and local thugs - has trapped women and children in their homes. Many women who'd formerly worked outside the home or attended school now stay indoors."
"Remember how the U.S. invasion of Iraq was supposed to liberate the women?"
Buffa goes on to answer her own question by detailing the plight of women in Iraq caught up in the War. It's not a pretty picture and on another level, once again shows how the Invasion of Iraq [remember "Shock and Awe" in the bombing of Baghdad?] has done so much "damage" to the now war-torn country. On[y today news reports out of Iraq speaks of chemicals being used by so-called insurgents.
"Normally not the subject of news stories, Iraqi women made headlines in three sensational stories last month. First there was the Sunni woman who accused Iraqi police officers of raping her. Since most of the Iraqi police are Shia, the issue became a sectarian row, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki firing a top Sunni official who had the audacity to say the rape charge should be investigated.
In the same month, a woman suicide bomber killed more than 41 people at a college in Baghdad, one of the largest attacks by a woman suicide bomber since the war began. And finally, there is the ongoing story of four women who face the death penalty in Iraq, at least one of whom could be executed any day now. Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, have questioned these women's trials for their lack of transparency and fairness, as well as a potential absence of legal representation.
Rapes, bombings, death sentences, and a discriminatory legal system; it is one of the unspoken facts of militarism that women often become the spoils of war. The Iraq war has been a disaster in many ways, but none so extreme as what it's done to Iraqi women.
Women not only suffer what everyone in Iraqi society suffers - the absence of security, collapse of the country's infrastructure, a health care system in tatters, and high levels of poverty and unemployment. They also suffer gender-based violence and increased social conservatism. The constant violence - looting, assault, kidnapping, rape or death at the hands of suicide bombers, militias, foreign troops, Iraqi police, and local thugs - has trapped women and children in their homes. Many women who'd formerly worked outside the home or attended school now stay indoors."
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