Iraqi Women Lose Rights under Regime Change

It may well be that Iraqi women are now saying, “Saddam where the hell are you when we need you?”

Women had enjoyed far greater rights under a secular Saddam Hussein's government. Under the US wonderful regime change, Iraqi women will now be subjected to misogynist Islamic laws.

Katheryn Coughlin, program administrator for the American Islamic Congress, a nonprofit organization conducting democracy training in Iraq, expresses concerns with the political developments in Iraq.

Once the country's secular civil code is replaced with Islamic Shariah law, women will be severely restricted from an education, professional careers, the rights to choose their marriage partners, or to divorce and to inheritance.

The sad fact is the interpretations of Islamic law by the general Islamic experts make women less than equal to men.

Ironically, an Iraq under the Baathist Party enjoyed secular civil law since 1959, which guaranteed women most of the same freedoms their Western counterparts enjoy.

Coughlin stated that under the new Iraqi Islamic law, girls can be married off when they are as young as 9, men automatically receive custody of their children in a divorce, and a woman inherits only half the amount her brothers do. Women would have no legal identity.

She worries that they would be treated as property rather than equals.

Coughlin should understand that the USA also supports Saudi Arabia, which in many instance, have far more draconian laws governing women. Then there is the US wonderful ally, Pakistan, where women may be raped under tribal law of an Islamic populace. Oh, by the way, there was the US old buddies, the Talibans –remember them?

Where oil and Americans are concerned, f*** women rights!