Documents abuses of women in detention based on interviews with women and girls in prison.

On 11 March a public meeting will be held in House of Commons Committee Room 17 to discuss the recent Human Rights Watch report on the abuse of Iraqi women in detention.

The 105-page report, ‘No One Is Safe’: Abuses of Women in Iraq’s Criminal Justice System’  documents abuses of women in detention based on interviews with women and girls, Sunni and Shia, in prison; their families and lawyers; and medical service providers in the prisons at a time of escalating violence involving security forces and armed groups.

Earlier this year Haifa Zangana spoke at the European Parliament in Brussels, outlining the appalling situation women in Iraq face, and made clear what steps she thinks Europe to take to help her country.

She said: ‘The National Iraqi News Agency reported on 24 January that the Iraqi military’s mortar shelling the night before left 4 people dead and 32 more injured “including women and children” and Saturday’s military shelling of Falluja left 5 people dead and 14 more injured — “most of them women and children.” Falluja General Hospital was shelled as well.

Iraqi’s government assault on Anbar continues – and the attacks have been indiscriminate, leading many civilians to flee; since fighting broke out at the end of last year, more than 140,000 people have been made homeless – on top of the 1.13 million people already internally displaced in Iraq.’

And she continued to clearly illustrate how the regression in women’s situation is devastating. The transcript was published later. WVoN  has taken just a few points from it.

‘ I will,’ she said, ‘focus on violence in the public sphere and how it became so prominent that women have been forced to give up hard earned rights, such as employment, freedom of movement, abolition of polygamy, and the right to education and health services, seeking instead, protection for themselves and their families.

The occupation of Iraq in 2003 left Iraqi women in a terrible state of regression on two interrelated levels. The first level is relevant to women as citizens in an environment that lacks guarantees and protection by a credible national criminal justice system embodying international standards. This subjects women as well as men to violations of their human rights.

The second level is to do with gender-related violence in public which is particularly relevant during occupation, war and armed conflict, often providing the context for sexual abuse, rape, and trafficking of women and girls.

Iraq “remains in a state of low-level war” with nearly 9500 civilians were killed in 2013. The right to life and physical security are the first casualties of the  current “ low level  war” affecting women as citizens whether the violence targets them directly (physically) or indirectly (the killing of their children or male relatives leaving them as heads of households). War and occupation have claimed over a million Iraqi lives,  thus leaving behind an approx million widows and 5 millions orphans.

The phenomenon of women begging in the streets has become commonplace in Iraq.  Invariably, the government’s response is to arrest them and throw them in prison, Instead of finding permanent solutions to lift them from this suffering.”

Iraq is currently host to one of the highest execution rates in the world: 1,300 prisoners are said to be on death row, women are among them. Some executions are carried out secretly. Under current Iraqi law, 48 offenses are subject to the death penalty.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay likened Iraq’s justice system to “processing animals in a slaughterhouse.”

She also mentioned that  Iraq’s justice system is “too deeply flawed to warrant even a limited use of the death penalty, let alone dozens of executions at a time,” warning that the death penalty undermines efforts to reduce violence and achieve a more stable society. Torture, sexual abuse and the threat of rape and actual rape are frequently inflicted on detainees, regardless of their gender.

The lack of basic security in the streets, road blocks, collapsed health systems, water contamination and the feeling of fear, anxiety and despair are factors which affect mothers. Being able to give birth safely is becoming  a privilege rather than a fundamental human right – the maternal mortality rate for Iraq remains the highest in the region.

Dr Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and author of the book Pollution and Reproductive Damage, said: ‘Sterility, repeated miscarriages, stillbirths and severe birth defects – some never described in any medical books – are weighing heavily on Iraqi families.’

Problems attributed largely to white phosphorus bombs US troops used in their major offensives against the city of Fallujah In November 2004.

The effects of wide spread polygamy, no matter how it is marketed, will damage what Iraqi women have been struggling to get rid of for over a century. Combined with temporary marriage, it is a huge degrading step backward.

According to the 2011 Trafficking in persons (TiP) Report, Iraq is a source and destination country for men, women and children subjected to trafficking for begging, prostitution and organ trafficking.

For girls less than 16 years old, prices range from USD30,000; older girls USD2,000…

To read the rest of this presention, which makes gruelling reading, click here.

Zanagana is quite clear about what Europe can and should do to help Iraqi women.

First: actions to stop the atrocities.

The priority of international pressure is to ensure the current bloodshed stops, before it multiplies to a level comparable to Syria.

A public stance by the EU against social and political abuse is, she said, the best policy to fight terrorism

When Iraqi women are asked about the most important issue their reply is ‘security’ followed by ‘health’ and ‘education’ and ‘employment’.

Running workshops on political participation and democracy are great, but, Zangana explained, at time of conflict and war they are at the bottom of the list of priorities.

A Special Rapporteur should be appointed.  She sees this is a first step to monitor the crimes committed by the sectarian corrupt regime; crimes which must be addressed to bring an end to a state of impunity.

Second, and a related point – the emphasis should be on the root causes of terrorism in government policy rather than focussing on Islamophobia and myths about foreign forces.

Ban Ki-moon in his visit to Iraq on January 14 singled out what the protests has been demanding all along: looking at the root causes of the problems. They are: sectarianism, corruption, lack of basic services, violations of human rights, increasing unemployment and organised gangs and militias flourishing under a kleptocratic government.

Third: stop supplying weapons to a regime which is using them against the Iraqi people.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows in its annual report a massive disregard by many states in this respect.  You cannot expect the Iraqi people to believe the West’s good intentions when faced with this underlying reality, namely Western countries selling weapons to a government which is oppressing Iraqi civilians.

Fourth: expose corruption and demand transparency.

Where is Iraq’s wealth stashed?

The current Maliki government has been harvesting over USD100bn a year for some time now, from the nation’s oil wealth. That amounts to on average to about USD20,000 a year per Iraqi household of 7 people. And Iraqis are left deprived of basic commodities as a result of this process.

The wealth is being squandered or stolen or both. A situation described by Transparency International as:  “Massive embezzlement, procurement scams, money laundering, oil smuggling and widespread bureaucratic bribery have led the country to the bottom of international corruption rankings, fuelled political violence and hampered effective state building and service delivery.”

And she concluded by remarking that ‘implementing justice is the only way to put an end to terrorism, and to allow the Iraqi people to rebuild their country and rehabilitate a cohesive social structure.’

Human Rights Watch has said that the Iraqi authorities ‘should acknowledge the prevalence of abuse of female detainees – women have described being beaten, kicked, slapped, hung upside-down and beaten on their feet, given electric shocks, and raped or threatened with sexual assault by security forces during their interrogation – promptly investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment, prosecute guards and interrogators responsible for abuse, and disallow coerced confessions.

‘They should make judicial and security sector reform an urgent priority as a prerequisite for stemming violence that increasingly threatens the country’s stability.

“The abuses of women we documented are in many ways at the heart of the current crisis in Iraq,” deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch Joe Stork said.

“These abuses have caused a deep-seated anger and lack of trust between Iraq’s diverse communities and security forces, and all Iraqis are paying the price.”