Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07BAGHDAD1712
2007-05-23 15:29:00
SECRET
Embassy Baghdad
Cable title:  

STATUS OF WOMEN IN SADR CITY

Tags:  KDEM KWMN PGOV PHUM PINR PINS IZ 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO4244
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHKUK
DE RUEHGB #1712/01 1431529
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
P 231529Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1342
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
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).

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