A Look At Women and the Iraqi Constitution

The new Iraqi constitutions seems to be a reflection of many hard fought meetings and compromises between people of strongly varying religious views. If often seems contradictory - sometimes within the same article. The reason for this is undoubtely the result of attempts to reach compromise wordings between oposing groups. The second article is a good example:

Article (2)
1st - Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation:
(a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.
(b) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.

Islam does not allow any of its laws to be submitted to a vote of the people. And its laws cover much of life. Democracy requires that laws must be man made. (A) and (B) of article 2 will clash from the moment that judges and legislators begin their work. For example, Islam says that a sons share of the inheritance shall be twice that of the daughter. But article 14 says this:

"Article (14): Iraqis are equal before the law without discrimination because of sex, ethnicity, nationality, origin, color, religion, sect, belief, opinion or social or economic status."

So immediately we have a contradiction.

It seeems that the framers of this constitution wanted to allow themselves some wiggle room by adding "undisputed" to Article 2 (a). Article 14, on the other hand, is firm.

There seems to be some concern about Article 39 and what it will do to women's rights.

Article (39): Iraqis are free in their adherence to their personal status according to their own religion, sect, belief and choice, and that will be organized by law.

Some interpret this to mean that Iraqis can choose Sharia in settling family affairs. This may well be the case, and it does present a problem for women. While women are insured equal rights under secular law, if a woman is pressured by her family to accept Sharia, she may be giving up many of those rights. This is certainly a serious area of concern in this constitution. How future laws choose to implement this article will determine how bad the problem is.

There is, however, enough fire power for women in the constitution that it should allow them to obtain true equality if they are willing to use what they have. First, article 14 guarantees their equality; and second, they have article 151:

Article (151): A proportion of no less than 25 percent of the seats in the Council of Representatives is specified for the participation of women.

There should be numerous opportunities where the women's vote will decide a major issue of legislation. By using their leverage in these situations they should be able to trade their support for legislation which increases their position of equality under the law.

The problem that remains is if the nation continues to elect theocratic legislators. In that case women will not have the opportunity to solidify their equality. The parties will be able to find women to run who want to uphold the principles of Islam. But my thinking is that the Islamic parties will attract less and less followers as time goes by. I think that the fanaticism of people like Zarquawi and Al Sadr are going a long way to turn people away from their religion. Or for those who are standing by their religion, they at least will want to see less of it in government.

The constitution has left enough room for interpretation that the country can go a long way in the direction of secularism by choosing some articles to stress more than others. My expectation is that this is what will happen.