women's organizing and the conflict in Iraq since 2003
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abstract This article examines the development of a women’s movement in Iraq since the invasion in 2003. It describes the types of activities and the strategies of different women activists, as well as highlighting the main divisions among them. The article also discusses the various ways in which the ongoing occupation and escalating violence in Iraq has shaped women’s activism and the object of their struggles. Communal and sectarian tensions had been fostered by the previous regime as well as by the political opposition in exile prior to 2003, but the systematic destruction of national institutions, such as the army and the police, by the occupation forces, has led to a flare-up of the sectarian conflict. The article concludes by evaluating women’s activism in terms of its contributions to conflict on the one hand and national reconciliation on the other.
keywords Iraqi women’s movement; Iraqi women’s rights activists; post-invasion Iraq; occupation; violence; sectarian politics
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feminist review 88 2008 c 2008 Feminist Review. 0141-7789/08 $30 www.feminist-review.com (74–85)
introduction
1 This paper is based on research conducted in the UK, USA, Jordan and Iraq among women activists, practitioners in international organizations and NGOs, as well as government officials, for a larger project, entitled ‘The role of women and gender in the political transition in Iraq’, and funded by a grant from the British Academy. The authors wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very useful comments on an earlier version of this article and the support and encouragement of Amal Treacher.
The ongoing conflict in Iraq and escalating violence since the invasion in 2003 has unfolded against the backdrop of a society and an economy decimated by over a decade of comprehensive sanctions, previous wars and militarization, in addition to a civil society destroyed by decades of brutal dictatorship (Sluglett and Farouk-Sluglett, 2001; Dodge, 2005; Al-Ali, 2007).1 Communal and sectarian tensions were fostered by the previous regime as well as by the political opposition in exile prior to 2003, but the systematic destruction of national institutions, such as the army and the police, as well as other decisions taken by the occupation authorities, have led to a rapid expansion in communal, tribal and sectarian religious identities and, more significantly, their incorporation into political structures and institutions emerging since the US-led invasion (Dodge, 2005; Herring and Rangwala, 2006). Various political groups, including the former opposition in exile that dominate the central government, as well as those that have formed to resist the occupation and/or central government, have each targeted women and gender relations, through measures ranging between legislation and the use of physical violence, as part of their political projects to gain authority (Al-Ali and Pratt, 2006, forthcoming 2008). It is within this context of occupation, fragmenting authority, competing visions of the political future of Iraq, growi
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