The Hindu Business Line : Will their lives change?

Till now Iraqi women have got a decent education and have worked in offices without dress restrictions being enforced on them. But when Iraq gets a new government, that is bound to be dominated by Shiite clergy, would such freedom remain?

Till you get into Baghdad, and walk around its streets, it is difficult to believe that Iraq's deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, who was faulted and hated on any number of counts by his own people, was that rare Arab leader who had not trampled on women's rights in different areas.

On the contrary, as far as basic rights of women, such as the freedom to education and employment, and to dress as they wished, were concerned, he was a modern, liberal leader.

One had heard of Iraq being one of those rare countries that had a women's soccer team and even a separate trading floor for women on the Baghdad Stock Exchange. But what one was not prepared to see in Baghdad, and the rest of Iraq too, was so many women who had a university education and held jobs in male bastions such as finance and banking, management education and top slots in departments like the Ministry of Trade.

My first point of contact with Iraqi women was on board Jebel Ali 1, on its voyage from Dubai to Basra's port Umm Qasr. The journey was supposed to take 36 hours but took 72 hours, thanks to obstacles like the Americans stopping the ship for a detailed search operation. The next hiccup was the ship reaching Umm Qasr late in the evening, when Immigration and Customs clearance could not be done due to lack of adequate infrastructure. Returning to the gender aspect, one noticed that almost all the women on the ship had their heads covered with some kind of a scarf. Many of them were not wearing the traditional black abaya, and did not have hijab in the strict sense of the word (which means that not a hair of your head should peep out). And they were wearing smart western clothes, even though tailored to a loose and comfortable cut.

What struck you the most about these women was that their grooming was complete with full make-up, applied not loudly but expertly.

But what's in question here is not so much the grooming of Iraqi women, as the opportunities they've had for educational and economic empowerment.

Talking to many educated Iraqi women in Baghdad, it became clear that from the time they could remember, girls had always gone to school. In well-do-do families, the girl got as much higher education, or an opportunity for one, as her brother. After acquiring a degree, she was allowed to take up a job in her field of specialisation.

Among the educated Iraqi women I met were Huda Ahmed, a retired chief accountant from a Baghdad bank, Anwaar, a management professor from a Baghdad institute of management and Basima, a graduate, who had hitherto been working in the Ministry of Trade, which was totally burnt down. When we met, she was still encountering problems in getting her job back. "The coalition forces think I was a supporter of Saddam. But the truth is that I hated him, and do so even now. What choice did people like me have other than work in the Government if chosen for a post? We got miserable salaries, but could anybody dare to say no," asked the agitated woman, who was angry at the coalition forces for taking "Iraq towards more chaos than it had".

While Anwaar is happy with the 30-fold hike in salary given by the Coalition Provisional Authority and wants the "Americans to be here for another one or two years, or else various feuding Iraqi groups will destroy the country," Huda is furious and says, "How dare they even stay here for another day? Of course, Saddam was a devil who needed to go, but we don't need the Americans here either to plunder our oil and then go around behaving as though they are giving us charity."

Well, these are women who are educated and can express their views freely. And dress as they want, as one discovered in Baghdad streets, where one found jeans or trousers, shirts or skirts, gowns or even abayas.

But move over to the Shia-dominated Najaf and Karbala and the gender scene is quite different. These are holy cities bearing the mausoleums of Imam Ali (Najaf), his son Imam Hussein and the latter's brother Hazrat Abbas. Inside the mausoleums, the dress code is absolutely strict, and the hijab has to be worn in such a perfect way that not a hair on the head peeps out. An impossibility, considering that during mid-October lakhs and lakhs of Shiite pilgrims, especially Iran, had come to these cities for the most holy pilgrimage of the Shiite fraternity.

The force of the jostling and pushing was sufficient to throw out the most determined hijab, and this happened most of the time to make the volunteers inside the shrines scream "Khanum (lady), hijab, hijaaaab!"

While one could understand and respect the stringent dress code within the shrines — even while wondering how men could be allowed to come in without even covering the head, a gesture of respect — it was sad to see women being reduced to just bundles of black cloth even outside the mausoleums and in the streets of Karbala or Najaf. While one has nothing against a woman opting to don hijab, burqa, abaya, and so on, out of choice, one fails to understand why a dress code should be forced on women by the male members of the family.

As one saw huge groups of women ... or rather a sea of black bundles of cloth, one wondered whether these were living, thinking, feeling human beings, who had at least some degree of power over their own lives. It was not only in the dress code but the entire manner in which men and women moved around on the streets of these cities that was disturbing. Though by design or not, the women always walked a few steps behind the men, carried all their belongings, and sometimes even children, on their heads, and did not utter a word in public.

Of course, not all of them were Iraqi women, a greater part of the pilgrims were from Iran. But what was important — and to be noted — was that they were all Shiite women.

It has to be remembered that about 60 per cent of Iraqis are Shia, 30 per cent are Sunni, and the rest are Kurds, Christians and other minority groups. Saddam was Sunni, and had brutally suppressed the religious rights of the Shias. Now one cannot say that Sunnis are more liberal than the Shias... look at Saudi Arabia, where the Sunnis are in absolute majority and power... but the feeling one got after visiting Iraq was that if the people vote in a Shiite government — the Shiite clergy are waging a violent and bloody battle for power — the Iraqi women, who till now, had enjoyed relative freedom in terms of educational and employment opportunities as well in dressing how they pleased, might be "reined in" in more ways than one.

After all, the record of Arab rulers, when it comes to gender issues and rights, is not a shining example for anybody to follow.

And truly enough, Zainab, a female employee, in the Mayor's office, who was dressed in elegant western attire, and had not covered her head, was doubtful that she would be able to dress like this when an Iraqi regime is in power. I doubt it, but will keep my fingers crossed.

Significantly, another group of young college students I spoke to in a Baghdad street said they were concerned about an Islamic dress code being enforced in the future, "but not as much as the coalition presence and road blocks which makes us late to college everyday".

Pictures by the author

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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