NDI SUPPORTS IRAQI WOMEN'S POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIRKUK 000052 SIPDIS SIPDIS BAGHDAD FOR POL, NCT, USAID, ROL COORDINATOR, IRMO E.O. 12958: DECL: 3/2/2016 TAGS: PGOV KWMN KDEM PINR IZ SUBJECT: NDI SUPPORTS IRAQI WOMEN'S POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT KIRKUK 00000052 001.2 OF 002 CLASSIFIED BY: Michael Oreste, Deputy Political Counselor for Provincial Outreach, PRT Kirkuk, DoS. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) Information in this cable should be reviewed under the Privacy Act before release. ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. A National Democratic Institute (NDI) Program Manager for women's issues told IPAO's in late February that Iraqi women had not yet obtained an independent voice in political parties. NDI works with women from all Iraqi political parties to implement constitutional provisions advancing women's rights. END SUMMARY. ENCOURAGING WOMEN TO JOIN A PARTY; CODIFYING WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN THE CONSTITUTION -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) On 21 February, IPAO's met with an NGO program manager at PRT Kirkuk to discuss women's issues in Iraq. The NDI Program Manager (AMCIT) said that because Iraqi women did not yet have a strong independent voice in Iraq, her group has encouraged Iraqi women who want to engage in Iraqi politics to first join a political party and then work through parties to advance women's rights. Rather than lobbying political parties, NDI persuaded Iraqi women to work directly through the legal system to codify women's rights in the Constitution. She said Iraqi women currently were not in a position to change attitudes, only laws. NDI advocates women's rights in Iraq through a caucus of political parties, which includes the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI),Da'wa Party, Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP),and the Iraqi National Accord (INA). Her group, based in Baghdad, has several branches throughout Iraq, including one in Kirkuk. Female Iraqi politicians typically were disconnected from their party associates in Iraq's outlying areas, and thus our interlocutor had been traveling around Iraq in part to ensure women outside Baghdad were informed of her group's activities. IRAQI POLITICAL PARTIES ON WOMEN'S ISSUES -------------- ¶3. (C) When we queried our source on the role of women in Iraq's major political parties, she said that the Da'wa Party's female members were the most moderate of the main Islamic parties. The IIP women also were somewhat moderate and appeared to be more aligned ideologically with IIP leadership than the party's more hardline rank and file. She said female INA and IIP members were advancing faster and assuming more leadership posts in their parties, while the INA and Iraqi Communist Party were most open to advocate women's rights. Iraq's two major Kurdish parties-the KDP and PUK-were fairly progressive, but our contact argued, "they would sell their women for Kurdistan." ¶4. (C) When IPAO'S asked our source which portion of politically active women in Iraq were religious versus secular, she estimated that about 35 percent were Islamic conservatives and about 15-25 percent were secular. SCIRI and Da'wa competed for the rest who fell in the middle. Broadening the scope of the discussion, she opined that the majority of SCIRI's party members (male and female) were older than 35 years, and that the party was having difficulty recruiting new members. Younger moderate Islamic activists typically were joining the Iraqi Virtue (Fadilah) party, while the younger radicals were joining the Sadrist movement. bolstering political skills; emerging POLITICAL LADIES -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C) Recent trends suggested that Iraqi women who have filled parliament or party leadership positions have assumed those posts more often as a result of loyalty than ability. When IPAO's asked our source if she perceived Iraqi women were becoming more politically active, she suspected they were, but that they had difficulty branching out from the party line. Furthermore, Islamic parties were not recruiting women. (Comment. Iraqi women who seek involvement in political life must align themselves with existing political parties whose general principles probably agree with their own aspirations. That said, we have observed some women have joined parties because of ethnic or family ties. End Comment.) ¶6. (C) NDI's three-step process for helping Iraqi women advance in their parties was as follows: first, it helped women identify a goal and then learn how to present it to their party leaders; second, it encouraged women to support the Constitution as the mechanism to codify women's liberties; and third, NDI taught women how to achieve their goals. Our contact boasted of KIRKUK 00000052 002.2 OF 002 her group's efforts to help Iraqi women politicians add several (unspecified) women's rights to the Iraqi Constitution draft. BIOGRAPHIC NOTE -------------- ¶7. (C) Our source told us that Maysun al-Damluji-an INA member-was an emerging female leader, who appeared to be Ayad Allawi's spokesperson on women's issues; Safia al-Suhayl, an Iraqi National Assembly member and INA member, was another rising politician. ORESTE