Do we care about the women?

The face of Iraq in 2008, an explosion of honour killings:

In the latest such case, it was reported yesterday that a 17-year-old girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, was stabbed to death last month by her father for becoming infatuated with a British soldier serving in southern Iraq.

In Basra alone, police acknowledge that 15 women a month are murdered for breaching Islamic dress codes. Campaigners insist it is a conservative figure.

Violence against women is rampant, rising every day with the power of the militias. Beheadings, rapes, beatings, suicides through self-immolation, genital mutilation, trafficking and child abuse masquerading as marriage of girls as young as nine are all on the increase.

Reconciliation is the word on many lips, but a fundamentalist brand of Islam has been unleashed in the occupied nation.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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