Iraq: Women in Public Life

Women have played an active role in the political development of Iraq. Since the Ba’thists seized power in 1968, they have sought to incorporate women into political life through support of the state. The Ba’th Party created a mass political organization known as the General Federation of Iraqi Women (GFIW) shortly after the takeover to provide services and include women in the new government institutions. The GFIW developed literacy programs, skills training, childcare, and other activities as part of Iraq’s modernization effort in the 1970s and early 1980s. By 1982, the membership of the GFIW reached 200,000 with eighteen national branches. The Iraqi government has also emphasized women’s roles as mothers. The family is the basis for national unity, according to the government, and therefore women must seek to support the family.

Iraq has reformed the national legal code to prohibit sex discrimination in the workplace and sexual harassment. Other reforms have aimed to create gender parity in voting, divorce, taxes, and land ownership. The weaknesses of both the national infrastructure and civil service since the end of the Gulf War have curtailed enforcement of gender equality standards in recent years.

The international sanctions that were imposed on Iraq following the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait have had severe repercussions for health care and child mortality. The national health care infrastructure, which reached 97% of urban and 71% of the rural population before 1991, has faced severe shortfalls in supplies and capacity. According to a UNICEF study, the percentage of underweight children under the age of 5 has doubled from 12 to 23 in the south and central regions under the sanctions. In the 10 years since the sanctions have been in place, childhood mortality in the south and central regions has more than doubled to a rate that is higher than 20 years ago. In the autonomous region in the north that has been free of sanctions, childhood mortality rates have dropped to half of the rates of 20 years ago.

In education, females continue to lag behind males in both literacy and primary enrollment rates. In 1998, 64% of adult men and 43% of adult women were literate. During the same period, youth (people aged 15-24) literacy showed a smaller gap of 77% of males and 64% of females. According to World Bank estimates, 80% of boys and 70% of girls were enrolled in primary education in 1998.

Women comprise 19% of the national workforce. The loss of oil revenues has had a severe impact on the Iraqi economy. Although there is little data available since 1990, evidence suggests there is high female unemployment and that economic conditions are making employment gains for women difficult. Women are employed largely in the agricultural and services sectors.

In the autonomous region of the north, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) controls the Kurdistan Regional Government. The KDP has allowed women’s participation in party leadership and the central government. Women, both in the areas of engineering, run two of the twenty government ministries. Women have reportedly made gains in their representation in public and political life in the autonomous northern region.

For more information, please see Iraq - Gender weblinks