76% of Iraqi Girls Forbidden Basic Schooling

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=46612&sectionid=351020201
Iraqi women demand rights in rally
Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:25:50

International Women's Day rallies

Scores of Iraqi women have rallied outside a Baghdad hotel demanding an end to violence and equal social status with men.

"Stop neglecting women. Stop killing women. Stop creating widows," read a large banner that the women, from various ethnic and religious backgrounds, held at the Babylon Hotel on Saturday in Baghdad's central Karada neighborhood.

The rally was held on the International Women's Day, March 8.

After the rally, the protesters joined a much larger group that included men and children at a hotel conference room to hear from various speakers.

One of the speakers was Maisoon al-Damloji, a female member of Iraq's parliament from the Iraqia Party.

"We are united today in our desire to spread the peace in our country," she said. "We reject murder, torture and revenge."

Women in Iraq "suffered during Saddam's time and during the embargo, and now are suffering because of sectarian violence," she said.

Iraq's constitution reserves 25 percent of the country's 275 seats of parliament for women, though not all are currently filled because in some cases female candidates were unavailable.

A recent report by US-based Women for Women International said the situation of Iraqi women since the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq has become a "national crisis".

According to the report, released Thursday, 64 percent of the women surveyed said violence against them had increased since the US occupation.

"When asked why, respondents most commonly said that there is less respect for women's rights than before, that women are thought of as possessions and that the economy has gotten worse," it said.

The report also found that 76 percent of the women interviewed said that girls in their families were forbidden from attending school.