Basra's women have mixed feelings about the new era

Sabrine Makki is far from representative of the average Iraqi woman. Her full lips are painted a deep crimson, her hair is highlighted with liberal streaks of blond, and she makes full use of the striking good looks which enable her to stand out in any crowd. The few concessions she makes to the deeply religious society in which she lives are hard to detect. She does keep a hijab, or scarf, in the blue handbag slung across her shoulder, but only wears it when she has to, and feels much more at home in the tight-fitting top and high heels which have become her trademark amongst her fellow students. But far from being content with this all too obvious show of independence, Sabrine wants the new Iraq to be categorised by even greater freedoms for women. "In our society, people believe that men are better than women in all but pregnancy and labour," she said, noting that this was a view shared by as many women as men. "But why should I not be allowed to walk alone in the street or go out after dark if I want?" In expressing such radical views, Sabrine remains something of a minority in a country that in recent years has seen an increasing shift towards the more traditional cultural values which promote the rights of men over women, and where the majority believes that a woman's place is in the home. Ultimately, a woman's fate in Iraq depends largely on the economic background from which she hails. Thirty-five-year-old Natik Dikran, for example, comes from a middle-class background, qualified as a gynaecologist six years ago, and says that in her opinion women have so far had little to complain about. She can report few cases of domestic violence in her daily work, even fewer of rape, and although abortion is not allowed in Iraq except in cases where it can be proved that birth will endanger the mother's life, contraceptive pills are freely available to all without prescription. She admits she would never have been able to specialise as a surgeon - women are too emotional, so the theory goes - and would not have the courage to cut into flesh or tolerate the sight of blood, but she encountered no obstacles to becoming a physician, and points to the number of female doctors in Iraq as proof of that. Other women have not been so lucky. A head teacher, Khadijah Hamid, said many Iraqi teachers are recruited to work in other Gulf states where there are teacher shortages, but that these posts were rarely, if ever, given to women. She herself has applied for an overseas post on a number of occasions, and was always turned down. "My speciality is the field of mathematics, which is the subject most in demand abroad, and yet, every time I have applied I have not been accepted. Clearly, there is prejudice against women, and I think that this is unfair." In order to address discrimination in the workplace, Khadijah advocates the establishment of a women's group to lobby political policy makers to effect changes in legislation towards bringing about and consolidating equal rights for women, but which would stop short of seeking political power itself. Like all the Iraqi women IRIN spoke to, Khadijah believes that women's social advancement should be limited according to the teachings of the Koran. "The Koran says man is stronger than woman, and therefore more important." "It would not be appropriate, for example, for a woman to be president of Iraq," said Khadijah, even though she herself was elected as headmistress of her secondary school and now presides over a staff that includes at least three men. But even given these restrictions to women's advancement in society, women like Sabrine, Natik and Khadijah are the exception in a country where less than half the adult population of women is literate. Not only are the members of the latter group educated but they also benefit from having husbands or fathers who allow them out into the workplace. A trainee teacher, Tamarak (who declined to give her last name), said although her husband had allowed her to train as a teacher, her father-in-law refused to let his daughters work. "When we are together, they tell me how lucky I am that I am able to work. They wish that they could be like me." And for the tens of thousands of women who have been widowed by Iraq's many wars, or otherwise rendered destitute by an economy crippled by sanctions, and who remain uneducated and stigmatised by a society that still rejects the right of women to work in any but a few specialist fields, life becomes a desperate struggle to survive, in which the rights of women take a back seat to the more basic right to live. In Basra's main market street in the south of the city, two middle-aged women sit cross-legged on the pavement selling medicines stolen or otherwise acquired illegally. Both have lost their husbands to the battlefield, and since pensions for war-widows ceased after the fall of Saddam, they have been forced into peddling medicines in a bid to feed their children. "We have big families and cannot afford to feed them if we do not work, because we do not have any other form of income," one of the two told IRIN. What are their hopes for women's rights in the new Iraq? "Women's rights?" said the other, laughing loudly. "In Iraq we do not even have human rights."