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Letter to Hillary Clinton
By
Margaret Owen
Widows for Peace and
Reconstruction
July 26, 2003
18 June 2003
Dear Senator Clinton
NEEDS AND ROLES OF IRAQI WOMEN IN POST-CONFLICT
RECONSTRUCTION, DEMOCRACY AND PEACE-BUILDING
I have often heard you speak about the human rights of
women and children in developing countries in general,
and in countries afflicted by armed conflict
specifically. I have listened to you with admiration at
the Beijing Conference of 1995, and at the UN Commission
on the Status of Women in previous years.
Aware of your commitment to justice for women, I am
writing to you on behalf of Iraqi Women in the hope that
you will be able to exert your considerable influence in
the US Senate to ensure their human rights at this
crucial time in their history.
I am the Founder of the international, UK-based NGO
(with consultative status at the UN) EMPOWERING WIDOWS IN
DEVELOPMENT (EWD). After 9/11 I established the network
WIDOWS FOR PEACE AND RECONSTRUCTION (WPR) which seeks to
address the particular plight of the millions of
uncounted invisible and abandoned women who have lost
their main breadwinner and other male relatives and are
exposed to violence, poverty and marginalisation on a
massive scale. (I was also the consultant to UN DAW for
their publication WIDOWHOOD that addresses the situation
of conflict widows and wives of the disappeared)
For the last few months, I have been working closely
with Iraqi Women in exile in the UK and through them with
our government departments, DFID and the FCO, in an
effort to ensure that gender issues are mainstreamed in
any post-conflict administration.
The Iraqi Women here had indeed put forward a very
detailed proposal for a WOMENS TENT MEETING IN BAGHDAD.
(draft attached).
This Tent Meeting was designed to take place as soon
as possible and definitely before the next meeting of the
Interim Administration, so that the conclusions of its
three-day deliberations and the text of its manifesto
could be presented to the IA when it met again in
July.
The workshops planned were to cover such issues
as:
Law reform; adoption into domestic law of CEDAW and
other international human rights treaties; law and
justice (personal status); elimination of violence;
prostitution and trafficking; health; poverty and
income-generating; widows immediate needs and long-term
roles and representation.
Participants to the proposed Women's Tent Meeting
would have come from across the wide spectrum of Iraqi
Society, accommodating Sunni and Shia, Christians and
Jews, Arab, Kurd and Turkoman, rural and urban, educated
and illiterate, exiled women along with women within
Iraq. It would have been truly democratic and organised
for Iraqi Women by Iraqi Women.
For some weeks the UK government appeared to support
this proposal and the Iraqi Women in the UK, linked up
with those in Europe and within Iraq, were greatly
encouraged and optimistic that this meeting would take
place.
It has now come to our knowledge that Paul Bremer,
the US representative in charge of reconstruction in Iraq
has vetoed this proposal. And what is now planned is
something very minor which can not possibly provide the
much-needed channel and opportunity for Iraqi Women to
state their demands and rights.
We understand that the UK government is subservient to
the US decision to hold, instead, a small series of
workshops on July 9th. Exiled women are not to attend.
The meeting will be very small, restricted to fewer than
100 women. Possibly " celebrity Arab Women" will be
invited to give speeches and make the event look
important, as a cosmetic. For example, Queen Noor and
Mrs. Susan Mubarak have been mentioned.
This is highly upsetting to the Iraqi Women in the UK,
extremely professional and well-qualified, and dedicated
to returning to their country to contribute to
reconstruction, justice and democracy. They had planned
and worked for a working conference of women, not a
shop-front over in one day!
Given the huge area of immediate need and the
complexities of the medium and long-term roles of Iraqi
women, many of whom are now the sole economic support of
their children, and sick, wounded, traumatised and frail
people, this solution is almost an insult to Iraqi Women,
who now number far more than 55% of the population, due
to the huge numbers of deaths in war, executions and
disappearances. The mass graves give us some indication
of the huge numbers of widows and orphans who have a
right to have their voices heard.
Iraqi Women are asking now for 40% representation in
any new administration. Such issues as participation in
decision-making are not on the programme for Mr. Bremer's
Women's Workshop on July 9th.
We would, therefore, be most grateful if you could
consider investigating what the US administration in Iraq
is prepared to do in the context of Security Council
1325, and other human rights treaties and conventions.
Will it ensure that the women of Iraq are properly
represented in any new administration, nationally and
locally, that gender is mainstreamed across all
government departments, and that women's voices are
properly heard?
We must learn the lessons of Afghanistan, the Balkans,
Rwanda, and Angola where women, in the post-conflict
environment have been abandoned, and where millions of
widows and other single women are exposed to appalling
violence amid extreme poverty in a militarised and
unstable society.
Gender issues, as I know you agree, are not just an
issue for women, but affect the whole of society, and
have implications for conflict prevention, future peace
and sustainable development.
We hope you will be able to take up this issue in the
US Senate.
Yours sincerely
Margaret Owen
WIDOWS FOR PEACE AND RECONSTRUCTION
36, Faroe Road, London, W14 OEP
Tel/Fax: 0207 603 9733
Margieowen@aol.com
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