Amnesty:
Iraqi Women No Better Off Post-Saddam
By Jeremy Lovell
23 February, 2005
by
Reuters
Nearly two years after the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq, women there are no better off than under the rule of ousted
dictator Saddam Hussein, the human rights group Amnesty International
said on Tuesday.
In a report entitled
"Iraq -- Decades of Suffering," it said that while the systematic
repression under Saddam had ended, it had been replaced by increased
murders, and sexual abuse -- including by U.S. forces.
Washington promised
that the overthrow of Saddam would free the Iraqi people from years
of oppression and set them on the road to democracy. But Amnesty said
post-war insecurity had left women at risk of violence and curtailed
their freedoms.
"The lawlessness
and increased killings, abductions and rapes that followed the overthrow
of the government of Saddam Hussein have restricted women's freedom
of movement and their ability to go to school or to work," Amnesty
said.
"Women have
been subjected to sexual threats by members of the U.S.-led forces and
some women detained by U.S. forces have been sexually abused, possibly
raped," it added.
Amnesty said several
women detained by U.S. troops had spoken in interviews with them of
beatings, threats of rape, humiliating treatment and long periods of
solitary confinement.
The Pentagon said
it had not seen the report, but took any allegations of detainee abuse
seriously.
"We have demonstrated
our commitment to ensuring that kind of behavior is identified and dealt
with properly," spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Joe Richard said in
Washington.
"With this
report, we would like the opportunity to review it and to test the validity
of the allegations."
Amnesty said women's
rights activists and political leaders had also been targeted by armed
insurgent groups.
Women continued
to suffer legal discrimination under laws that granted husbands effective
impunity to beat their wives and treated so-called "honor"
killers leniently, the group said.
"Within their
own communities, many women and girls remain at risk of death from male
relatives if they are accused of behavior held to have brought dishonor
on the family," Amnesty said, noting some attempts by religious
zealots to make the laws even more repressive against women.
But on the positive
side, the report said several women's rights groups had been formed
-- including ones that focused on the protection of women from violence.
Amnesty called on
the Iraqi authorities and newly elected members of the National Assembly
to enshrine the rights of women in the new constitution.
This included treating
honor killings as murder, outlawing violence within marriage and making
sure that the punishment was commensurate with the crime committed.
© 2005 Reuters