Who?
Act Together: Women’s Action for Iraq is a group of UK-based Iraqi and non-Iraqi women. It was formed in 2000 to campaign against the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

The impact of economic sanctions on women, many of whom were widows and breadwinners after nearly a decade of war with Iran, was devastating. Since late 2001, we have campaigned against the US/UK invasion of Iraq, and the occupation.

From the beginning we made it clear that we opposed both the repressive Ba’ath regime, and US/UK policies on Iraq, which resulted in the most comprehensive sanctions in history (1990-2003), and continuous bombing campaigns (1991- 2003). Our aim was to cross the divide between Iraqi and British opposition to war and sanctions - we wanted to create a place where Iraqi and British women could share their experience and knowledge and work together.

Since the US and UK invasion, we have watched in horror as the instability, violence, and widely-promoted sectarianism that have accompanied the occupation have destroyed the lives of Iraqi women and girls. Instead of reconstruction, infrastructure and health systems are now even worse than under sanctions. We support grassroots activities by women in Iraq to improve their lives, especially the campaign against constitutional provisions that threaten women’s rights and freedoms in marriage, divorce, and inheritance.

What we do

In addition to raising consciousness about the current situation of women in Iraq and organising meetings and participating in numerous events, our current activities include the collection of books and publications for a women’s studies library in Baghdad.

In the future, we hope to document the lives and experiences of Iraqi women in an exhibition of objects and stories, and produce a book of letters, memoirs, pieces of fiction and poetry, and a series of short documentary films.

In March 2003, we mounted an exhibition called Our Life in Pieces: Objects and Stories from Iraqis in Exile.

Our position is...

War is not the way to fight terrorism on a global scale, nor has it improved the plight of the Iraqi people.
The British Government should draw up a time-table for withdrawal from Iraq as soon as possible and at the same time the international community should help create a structure to provide security to the Iraqi people.
Compensation must be paid to individuals who have lost family members, property or their livelihoods and the $23 billion stolen from Iraq since the invasion must be repaid.
Women in Iraq must be afforded their full human rights and guaranteed equality under the law. We oppose any attempt to take away the rights that Iraqi women have gained.

The Current Situation of Women in Iraq

Insecurity and violence
The struggle of day to day living
Health concerns

‘The lawlessness and increased killings, abductions and rapes that followed the overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussain have restricted women’s freedom of movement and their ability to go to school or to work. Women face discriminatory laws and practices that deny them equal justice or protection from violence in the family and community.’ (Amnesty International, February 2005)

Insecurity and violence
In Baghdad, everyone who leaves home in the morning - man, woman, boy, girl - does so with no certainty they will return safely. But in addition to the general violence and lawlessness, women and girls face the particular threat of rape. In July 2003, three months after the ‘liberation’ of Baghdad, Human Rights Watch reported that many women and girls were no longer going to work, or to school, for fear of sexual violence, abduction, and possible trafficking. The failure of the authorities to protect women and girls from sexual violence, and redress it when it occurs, severely restricts women’s participation in Iraqi public life.

Moreover, the occupying powers have themselves been responsible for violence against women. An unknown number of Iraqi women are in prison; many have been tortured and sexually abused. Amnesty International reported in February 2005 that released women detainees said ‘sexual humiliation’ was ‘the worst part of their treatment’. In Iraqi society the stigma of rape and sexual assault attaches to women, not to their assailants, and so reporting such abuses (is) especially daunting. Occupying forces and the Iraqi security services are also known to use the threat of sexual violence against women to force men in the family to give themselves up.

In the disorder that prevails in most of Iraq, power is exercised at local level by clan leaders, militias, armed groups, religious parties and political strongmen. Few of these forces are in favour of the education and emancipation of women. Apart from intense pressure on women to wear headscarves, including death threats, traditional law tolerates the ‘honour killing’ of women by male family members. Amnesty reports a case in al-Amara early in 2004, where a man killed his wife because she had had an affair, and her family was ordered by a tribal court to compensate him for his loss and the insult to his pride.

Professional women, and women in leadership positions, are specifically targeted by armed groups. In January 2005, Women for Women International listed names of some of the women attacked in the previous nine months, among them ‘Salwa’, who helped set up women’s centres in the south, and was murdered; ‘Ahlam’, a women’s rights activist in Baghdad, who was kidnapped; and ‘Zeena’, pharmacist and businesswoman, killed and dumped by the side of the road in the headscarf she had always refused to put on when she was alive.

Women live in fear of random violence on the streets. They are also traumatised by lack of access to imprisoned relatives. Because many police are members of sectarian armed groups, women do not know who can protect them and their families.

The struggle of day to day living
Women also suffer massively in the indiscriminate violence against civilians carried out by US forces in their campaign to ‘eradicate terrorists’. Since early 2005, large areas of towns like Qaim and Falluja have been reduced to rubble, with many of their male residents killed or arrested, and the remaining citizens - women, children, old people - dispersed. In these places, women struggle to keep their children alive with practically no resources.

In the rest of Iraq, everyday life is seriously affected by electricity cuts, the lack of work, the painfully slow process of reconstruction, high levels of corruption, and the privatisation measures that have been introduced .

The destruction of the public sector affects women in particular. Before the war, 72 % of working Iraqi women were public employees; many have now lost their jobs. In June 2003, for example, the Ministry of Information was disbanded and 5000 people were dismissed, one third of them women. Some 150 national industries are being privatised with massive loss of employment, including of women.

US women’s organisation CODEPINK says that ‘of the 260,000 reconstruction contracts in Iraq, fewer than 1,000 have gone to women’.

Moreover, nearly 16 % of working Iraqi women are farmers. In September 2003, it was announced that agricultural subsidies would be stopped completely by 2007. The impact of war, plus the removal of subsidies for fertilisers will drive many farmers - including many women - out of business.

Health concerns
Backstreet abortions have risen dramatically as women are more fearful of family ‘honour killings’. Yet none of the authorities have put the provision of safe, confidential sexual health services for women on their agendas.

Child malnutrition, which doubled under sanctions, has dramatically increased again since the invasion. Many basic medicines are not available in hospitals, and in Basra there have been no drugs to treat cancer for three years. There is also the ongoing effect of depleted uranium, used in the 1991 Gulf War, and embedded in the tip of almost every shell and bullet fired by US forces since the invasion in March 2003. Depleted uranium scatters as fine dust and seeps into ground water and rivers; it remains toxic for billions of years. After 1991, Iraqi doctors reported an explosion in the rates of child leukaemia and other cancers. In August 2005, Dr Lamia’a Amran, a paediatrician at the Iraqi Red Crescent hospital in Baghdad, said she and her colleagues believe around 60% of the deformities in new-born babies are the result of ‘radiation and pollution’. Four deformed babies are born at the IRC hospital every week.

July 2006