“We will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free.”
— George Bush, March 17, 2003, televised address.
A year after Bush’s lofty promise, how are Iraqi women and families faring under US occupation?
Newspaper headlines attest to the ongoing lack of state security in Iraq. Less examined is the status of human security, the right of Iraqi women and families to have their basic needs met and their human rights respected, protected and fulfilled. After a year of “liberation” at the hands of the US military, most Iraqi women find that they are much worse off.
Since the “end of hostilities”, ongoing military violence and a spike in violence against women in Iraq has curtailed all aspects of women’s lives, preventing many from leaving home, even for food, water or medical treatment, or to go to work or school. Conditions of daily life are deteriorating, rather than improving, with most of Iraq still experiencing power outages for an average of 16 hours a day.
Children sleep in the streets between rising piles of uncollected garbage. Drinking water is contaminated, and there are 12-hour waits to buy gasoline or cooking fuel, (and) no telephone or postal service.
Iraqi women have had to intensify their work hauling water, preparing food and caring for children traumatized by bombing, disease and malnutrition.
For more information on living conditions for women and children in Iraq, read this report, filed by Madre’s Associate Director, Yifat Susskind.
