BAGHDAD,
October 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Every morning, Eman
Mohammad, a 37-year-old widow, rises at three o'clock and sits on the
sidewalk with dozens of women in poverty-stricken Baghdad hoping for a
day of back-breaking work in the fields.
Most
of the women are widowed or have been abandoned by their husbands, and
have no brothers or sons to help them feed their large families,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on October 30.
Clad
in head-to-toe black robes, they converge early in the morning at the
Baghdad Gate in the northwest of the capital.
They
wait for growers to hire them to work for a day in the fields for
wages of about 3,000 dinars (1.50 dollars).
They
will pick dates, eggplant or peppers, depending on the season.
A
pick-up stops. "I need five women," says Zaki Elwan.
Negotiations start.
Elwan
yells out "3,000 dinars" but one woman shouts back:
"No, 4,000", to which he responds: "You know that is
not the rate”.
None
of the women budge. After a while, the man pretends he's leaving. One
woman then suggests "3,000 and you give us some dates".
A
deal is cut and five women jump on the truck.
"Every
day it's the same thing. They rush to me, ask me what I offer and we
start to discuss the price," says Elwan, 41.
Badria
Mohammed Jassem is left on the pavement, something she half-expected.
"I'm
old, they don't want me," said Jassem, who puts her age at 70.
"Sometimes
I stay four, five days without working, I live on bread and tea,"
says Jassem, whose husband left her when she was young.
Going
Hungary
Mohammed
Hussein, a 46-year-old merchant, says he knows "those who work
well and the others".
"There's
nothing humiliating about it. They are employees, they start young
until they are no longer useful," Hussein said.
Pointing
to one of the women, he says: "In one year that one will
die".
For
the women, who say they no longer receive the social aid they got
under Saddam Hussein, a day without work means their families will go
hungry.
Although
Iraqis are happy they no longer have Saddam, but they are still
traumatized by the current conditions plaguing the country; lack of
security, scant basic services and occupation of their country after a
three-week grinding offensive.
