Veil of Anxiety Over Women's Rights

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The fate of women in Iraq remains fraught with unknowns. The Fundamental Law just approved by the Iraqi Governing Council, which may serve as a model for the Iraqi constitution, contains important contradictions on matters affecting women. Quite apart from laws on paper, Iraqi women suffer from the devastated condition of the country's economy, from the stupefying unemployment rate and from an alarming crime wave that includes the kidnapping of girls for ransom. Armed fundamentalist movements on the ground, often hostile to women's rights, care little for secular laws and constitutions.

Iraqi civil law has been among the more favorable to women's rights in the Arab world, though social reality often diverges from the ideal. Contrary to many statements by Bush administration officials, it's not at all clear that women are better off since the Iraq war. The United States appointed few women to the Governing Council and those who were chosen were quickly marginalized by powerful male expatriates, including several U.S.-backed clerics. The U.S. could not even prevent Aqila Hashimi the most experienced of the women, from being gunned down last fall. American attempts to appoint women judges were blocked in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. There are only seven women judges in Iraq.

The women on the Governing Council did achieve one impressive legislative victory at the end of February. They won reversal of a decision, made last December and spearheaded by Shiite cleric and council member Abdelaziz Hakim, that would have abrogated the 1959 uniform civil code for personal-status laws. Hakim and his council allies sought to put Iraqis under the authority of their religious courts with respect to inheritance, marriage, divorce and related matters. Conventional interpretations of Islamic law would give girls, for example, only half the inheritance of their brothers.

The adoption of the new Fundamental Law, or interim constitution, by the Governing Council raised many questions about the future treatment of women. A recently published Arabic draft of the document contains many passages supportive of women's rights. These paragraphs, however, may conflict with other provisions. The law says that Islam is the official religion and that it is "a fundamental source" of legislation. It also bars laws that would directly contradict the Muslim legal code, or Sharia. The prominence of Islam need not undercut women's rights, but if the Fundamental Law is interpreted in a fundamentalist or patriarchal way, women could be harmed.