News - Global Fund for Women

From Iraq: Our Struggle Continues

Tags:Grantee Partners, Iraq, Middle East/North Africa, militarism, prison justice, rape

Women of Iraq have gradually let go of most of their 20^th century gains and privileges in the last four years of occupation. Iraq turned from a modern country of educated and working women into a divided land of Islamic and ethnic warlords who completely cancel women from the social realm. Millions of women's destinies are wasted between the destructive U.S. war machine and different kinds of Islamic rule who have turned women into helpless black objects of no will or worth.

After four years of "democratizing" Iraq, systemic group rapes of detained women have become a routine procedure practiced in police stations and detainment camps. It has also become another ugly face of the atrocious sectarian war where assaulting females of the other sect is considered a political victory and punishment.

Abeer, Sabrine, and Wajidah's sufferings were known, heard, and ended, but hundreds of unknown assaulted women still get beaten, raped and videotaped daily in the Iraqi ministries and around the American bases.

Sectarian genocide and gynocide have horrified millions of women speechless and paralyzed. In the same time, the occupation unleashed the freedoms of religious legislators to abolish any possibility of constitutional rights for Iraqi women to leave them vulnerable to misogynist religious norms of their clans, thereby committing a new crime of humanity against generations of unsuspecting female citizens to come.

In a time of unprecedented poverty and destitution in Iraq, the oil resources are awarded to foreign companies in generous deals which deprives 25 million Iraqis of a most needed wealth, meanwhile only rewarding a minimal share to the ruling parties to be divided on ethno-religious and sectarian basis. This division, a first in Iraq, will only fuel the civil war to higher and deadlier levels.

The occupation forces have chosen to support and empower the enemies of women and freedoms in Iraq. Their relentless efforts of weakening and destroying women of Iraq have hit the highest point of inhumanity and barbarism. Nevertheless, the free women and people of Iraq can organize their ranks and refuse these atrocities. They struggle for freedom and equality to be achieved under a secular non-ethnic government in which the aspirations of women, youth and workers are represented.

On International Women's Day the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq calls upon the freedom loving millions around the world to stand by us in this Dark Age of the New World Order. Do not watch in sorrow. Come forward. Contact us and become part of a worldwide movement to end the occupation and build a free secular egalitarian alternative in Iraq.

Long live freedom and equality. Our struggles continues.

Yanar Mohammed is the president of Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, a Global Fund grantee.

Global Fund Co-Founder in NY Times

Tags:reproductive rights

Co-Founder of the Global Fund for Women, and president of Catholics for a Free Choice, Frances Kissling, was featured in today's New York Times.

Frances Kissling has been called the "philosopher of the pro-choice movement" by her friends and an "abortion queen" by her critics.

Read the full article in the New York Times.

Global Fund on KGO TV

Last night San Francisco's KGO TV aired a feature on the Global Fund for Women. You can watch it on their website.

Grantee on Kosovo Independence

Tags:Europe and Central Asia, Kosovo, militarism, Serbia

News from The Women in Black Network and the Kosovo Women's Network, Global Fund grantees:

In a blatant attempt to intimidate advocates of a peaceful solution to the Serbia-Kosovo conflict, a leading Serbian nationalist newspaper has called for the prosecution of the Women's Peace Coalition, a joint initiative of women activists, for advocating for the independence of Kosovo.

A leading article last Sunday in the tabloid paper Kurir, titled simply "Prison," argued that the Serbian Constitution proscribes up to 15 years in jail for anyone calling for the break-up of Serbia. The paper urged the prosecutor's office to open proceedings against the Serbian organization, The Women in Black Network, one of the two partners in the Coalition.A statement yesterday from the Coalition accused the paper of intimidation and stated that the Kurir journalist was likely "acting on instructions from those power centers, which want to further destabilize the Balkans and further alienate Serbia (from Europe)."

The Kosova Women's Network (KWN) and The Women in Black Network (Serbia) launched the Women's Peace Coalition in March 2006 to monitor the joint Serbia-Kosovo negotiations on Kosovo's future status from the perspective of women and to reject the "divisions of ethnicity and religion, as well as state borders and barriers."

The Coalition has been active on both sides of the troubled frontier since Martti Ahtisaari, the UN's Special Representative on Kosovo, proposed that Kosovo be awarded limited independence, under continued international supervision.

A recent statement from The Women in Black Network insisted that the political future of Serbia and Kosovo must rest on human rights rather than nationalism, even if this results in Kosovo's independence. The Coalition followed this up with an open letter last week that called for Kosovar women to be included in talks on the future status of Kosovo and in the drafting of any new constitution for Kosovo.

Both partners in the Peace Coalition understand that their position will be unpopular with nationalist sentiment on both sides of the frontier. Public opinion in Kosovo has been strongly in favor of outright independence for Kosovo, and on February 10 two ethnic Albanians died after being shot with rubber bullets by UN police during a major protest against Mr. Ahtisaari's plan.

On the other side, in Serbia, the Kurir article appears to indicate that Serbian nationalists will use the right-wing press to go after anyone who speaks out in favor of political moderation, and of rights rather than extremism.