Women of the New Iraq
By Haifa Zangana, AlterNet. Posted August 16, 2005.


The war on Iraq has not only made the country and world less safe, it has erased the social and political rights of women who were the most liberated in the Middle East.

A group of Iraqi women recently met the U.S. ambassador in an effort to push the framers of Iraq's constitution not to limit women's rights. Many Western feminist groups and some Iraqi women activists fear Islamic law, which if enshrined as a main source of legislation will be used to restrict their rights, specifically in matters relating to marriage, divorce and inheritance. The U.S. shares this concern; Iraqi women more generally do not. Why?