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Activists warn that many Iraqi women suffer domestic violence. (Google) |
BAGHDAD — Mays Adnan believes she is quite lucky for having survived years of beating, harassment and humiliation at the hands of her own husband.
"I spent 10 years being beaten by my husband, had two abortions due to the violence," the 36-year-old primary school teacher told IslamOnline.net.
"I was threatened by my father that if I divorce him, I would be killed."
She finally had to resort to a women advocacy group to help her.
"With the help of activists, I got the divorce," she recalls.
"I had to move to another governorate, lose contact with my family but at least got the legal custody of my five-year-old boy."
According to activists and international reports, many Iraqi women suffer domestic violence from their husbands, parents or relatives.
"In the northern and southern areas of Iraq, women are victims of daily violence," says Hadeel Athab, a women activist and an aid worker volunteer at a local NGO.
"Sometimes they are beaten by their own mothers who got used to the situation and believe that their daughters should do the same."
Helpless and hopeless, many desperate women even try to take their own lives.
"There is an official number of questionable suicide cases that goes around 120 cases only in the second half of last year, but our research has shown that the number might be at least 240 cases in all Iraq," says Athab.
A recent report by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) registered 139 cases of violence against women in the northern region of Kurdistan in the second half of 2008 alone.
It said 163 women were killed as a result of domestic violence in Kurdistan in 2009.
Experts suggest the number is less than 5 percent of the real estimates.
Unsupported
Activists complain that abused women find no support of any kind from the authorities.
"The situation is more than critical," maintains Athab.
She says that in more than 98 percent of the cases, women are often too scared to report their abusers to police.
"Many of the men who are responsible to reinforce the law or investigate the accusations adopt the same behaviours and are used to beat their wives or daughters," claims Athab.
"They would give support [to men] rather than bring justice."
Law experts agree that neither the authorities nor the laws offer any protection to women against domestic violence.
"The law doesn’t protect women in marriages at all," Azize Abdullah al-Ayadjin, a lawyer specializing in marriage, divorces and children custody, told IOL.
Adnan, the domestic violence victim, says no body knows about the scale of the problem than herself.
She believes that had it not been to private women groups, she would have never broken free from her abusing husband.
She now volunteers with a local women’s rights organisation to help women who face the same plight she once suffered.
"I dream of the day all of them would have the chance I had."
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