STATUS OF WOMEN IN SADR CITY

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 001712 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/23/2017 TAGS: KDEM KWMN PGOV PHUM PINR PINS IZ SUBJECT: STATUS OF WOMEN IN SADR CITY REF: BAGHDAD 1536 Classified By: DEPUTY POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT GILCHRIST FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D). ¶1. (S) SUMMARY: Sadr City District Advisory Council Members Suaad Allami and Hayder S. Zedan told EPRToffs May 22 that educational and employment opportunities for women in Sadr City have diminished significantly since 2003, due to religious doctrine, security concerns and infrastructure problems. Sadrist leaders have since 2004 prohibited men from providing professional obstetric or gynecological treatment to women, in effect denying the district's women all access to this care. Sadr City has no women's civil society organizations, and very few female representatives serve in local government. To begin countering these trends, Allami and Zedan hope to establish a women's center in Sadr City to educate, train, care for, and empower local women. EPRToffs discussed ways in which the USG can support this effort, and help improve healthcare more generally in the district. END SUMMARY. -------------- City Government - women against women -------------- ¶2. (S) Suaad Allami said that she currently serves as the only woman among 39 members of the Sadr City District Advisory Council (DAC). She reported that Sadr City's nine Neighborhood Advisory Councils (NACs) include a total of seven women out of approximately 120 members. (NOTE: The CPA initially required each NAC to include at least one woman. END NOTE.) When the Sadr City NACs appointed DAC members in May, 2003, they included four women in the original 41 DAC members. In October, 2004, one of the four women died in a targeted assassination. In 2005, the DAC promoted one of the remaining three women, a Sadrist, to the Provincial Council (PC),where she still serves. (NOTE: CPA required that women comprise at least 25% of PC membership. END NOTE.) In 2006, after multiple death threats, one of the two remaining woman resigned from the DAC. Only Allami remains. She continues to serve despite repeated threats and intimidation. Allami serves as Chair of the DAC's Women's Committee, and Zedan works as her deputy. They are the only two members of the committee. ¶3. (S) Allami noted what she termed a strange phenomenon - women in positions of political power in Iraq tend to reject proposals to improve the services or opporunities for women. ;She said that women in the Provincial Council and women on the Council of Representatives - both of which include the mandated 25 percent female representation - overwhelmingly vote along conservative party lines. These women often reject projects designed to empower women, and often convey this rejection with what Allami described as unusual vehemence. -------------- Education - too dangerous to travel -------------- ¶4. (S) Allami and Zedan most girls in Sadr City have continued to attend primary and secondary school since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. A few mixed-gender elementary schools still operate in the district. Far fewer women, however, attain post-secondary education now than did before April 2003. Allami and Zedan said that three major factors have diminished the educational opportunities open to women. Conservative and radical interpretations of Islam have led local leaders in Sadr City to discourage women from acquiring college degrees or professional training. The security situation has prevented women from traveling outside the Sadr City district to attend classes. And the deterioration of the district's infrastructure has forced women to focus on increasingly time-consuming, daily household chores instead of on their own education or training. -------------- Healthcare - "leave the women to die" -------------- ¶5. (S) Zedan and Allami said that women in Sadr City cannot currently access professional obstetric and gynecological care. Before 2003, Zedan said, women preferred not to see male doctors for this treatment; many women did see male doctors, however, because too few female doctors practiced in Baghdad. After the war, sectarian violence and the widespread flight of professionals from Sadr City, and from Baghdad more generally, further diminished the number of accessible female doctors. Zedan said that he has worked for many years in a hospital that includes an obstetrics-gynecology department. After the Saddam regime BAGHDAD 00001712 002 OF 003 fell, Zedan said that local religious leaders instructed him not to treat women in this department, even when the hospital staff eventually included just two doctors -- both men. Zedan said that he resisted these orders until 2004, when then-head of the Office of the Martyr Sadr, Mohamed Al Fartusi, threatened to kill him if he continued this practice. Zedan said that Al Fartusi told him, "Leave the women to die." ¶6. (S) Male doctors in Sadr City can provide women primary care and breast cancer treatment, Zedan reported. Both Zedan and Allami also reported that they do not believe many women in Sadr City currently suffer from domestic violence. -------------- Employment - teachers and midwives -------------- ¶7. (S) Allami and Zedan said that the same factors that limited women's access to education also drove many women out of the workforce. Employment opportunities have significantly diminished for women in Sadr City since 2003. Zedan noted that his wife has training and experience as a computer engineer, but she now stays home for fear of attack during the trip to work. Nor can she study, he added, for the same reason. Allami and Zedan said that, at present, women in Sadr City mainly work as teachers and midwives. Zedan claimed also that more women work in the court system in Sadr City than do women in any other Baghdad district. -------------- Civil Society - no women's organizations -------------- ¶8. (S) Allami and Zedan reported that civil society organizations focused on women's empowerment do not exist in Sadr City. A few religious women's groups provide food and basic services to impoverished women and children in the city. These groups also offer religious instruction, which Allami said offers a very conservative and sometimes "radical" interpretation of Islamic rituals and customs. "They tell women," she explained, "to wear more clothes and to close their minds." All women's education in Sadr City, Zedan explained, now focuses on religious indoctrination. -------------- Women's Center - hope for the future -------------- ¶9. (S) Allami said that she leads a non-governmental organization called the Baghdad Women's Assistance Organization. This organization operates out of the Karada District, Allami said, because it is currently too dangerous to work openly to empower women in Sadr City. She hopes, however, to begin working more openly through a women's center that she hopes to re-establish. She reported that in 2005 the Coalition Forces (CF) erected a building adjacent to the Sadr City DAC to serve as a women's center. It cost $400,000. The Ministry of Trade, however, claimed the building as its own, since it owns the land next to the DAC upon which the CF built the center. Allami said that when the DAC sought to re-acquire the building from the Ministry of Trade for its women's center, the Office of the Martyr Sadr (OMS) intervened to ensure that the Ministry retained it. Allami said that she has has searched for and located alternative buildings for the center, but has waited to open her center until she can ensure the legal status of potential locations. ¶10. (S) Allami said that she envisages many different roles for the women's center. She wants it to offer day care, adult education classes, seminars and workshops, advice and counseling. She wants it to include a medical clinic for women and children, as well as a library. "As a woman," Allami said, "I know that when women get out of the house to a training or workshop, they sense their own energy, see their value, and become open to change." She noted that, at present, women do not have a place in Sadr City to gather together in groups outside of their homes. ¶11. (S) In this regard, Allami said she also aims through the women's center to teach women about their civil and political rights. Women often approach her to complain about the lack of educational and professional opportunities in Sadr City; she said that she tries to help them learn to advocate for themselves, but conveys this advice "cautiously." Nonetheless, Allami said she hopes her center will help open women's minds and strengthen their sense of independence. She wants to encourage women to vote. "I want them to vote what they believe, not what their husbands believe." While the women's center could not reach every house in Sadr City, Allami admitted, she believes it would reach many women. BAGHDAD 00001712 003 OF 003 ¶12. (S) Allami said that she has herself adopted a new political strategy in seeking broad support for the center. She reached out to female Sadrists on the Provincial Council, before the center comes to the PC for approval, to ask for their advice and support. She said that the Sadrist women on the PC generally expressed support for the idea of a women's center. They apparently agreed that women need a place to gather outside the home. -------------- Role for USG -------------- ¶13. (S) EPRToffs asked how the USG can help Allami and Zedan to establish the women's center. Allami said that the USG can help to pay for programming and supplies once she and Zedan have obtained a building site. EPRT Deputy Team leader offered to direct local governance training and other USG educational resources to women in Sadr City. EPRT members also reported progress in their coordinated work with Zedan to provide medical training, supplies, and equipment to the people of Sadr City. CROCKER