Iraqi Women as Legally Vulnerable Subjects: Applying Gender-mainstreaming and Vulnerability Theory in the Post-conflict Iraqi State

• Citation: Vol. 33 No. 2
• Publication year: 2019

Iraqi Women as Legally Vulnerable Subjects: Applying Gender-Mainstreaming and Vulnerability Theory in the Post-Conflict Iraqi State

Jenna Breslin

IRAQI WOMEN AS LEGALLY VULNERABLE SUBJECTS: APPLYING GENDER-MAINSTREAMING AND VULNERABILITY THEORY IN THE POST-CONFLICT IRAQI STATE

Abstract

As the United States mobilized troops to invade Iraq in the spring of 2003, the national agenda at the forefront of the charge was "Operation Iraqi Freedom." The push to "liberate" the Iraqi citizen from the oppressive Ba'athist State capitalized on a newly created United Nations Security Council Resolution: Resolution 1325. As a peace-building mechanism, Resolution 1325 proposes that in order to reconstruct a nation following conflict, increased numbers of women must be incorporated into policy, government, and police forces. This form of gender mainstreaming is a tenet of liberal feminism that relies on the "add women and stir" approach to gendered equality. However, when applied in post-conflict Iraq, women did not experience the expected gendered equality envisioned by Resolution 1325. Instead, these reconstruction techniques ignored the crumbling state infrastructure and attempted to impose western ideals of equality, leaving Iraqi women only more vulnerable and susceptible to gender based violence and retaliation, disease, poverty, and death. This Comment argues that in post-conflict Iraq, Resolution 1325 was not only apathetically applied, but was, and remains to be, a wholly ineffective tool to reconstruct war-torn nations. This Comment therefore proposes an alternative to the gender-mainstreaming policies of Resolution 1325, turning instead to Martha Fineman's Vulnerability Theory. Rather than attempting to achieve gendered justice by increasing the numbers of women in reconstruction, Vulnerability Theory operates within the post-conflict state to assert that the state must be responsive to the root causes of suffering and discrimination experienced by vulnerable populations following armed conflict, and must rebuild base economic, political, and social infrastructure first, understanding that factors such as poverty, diminished access to life-saving resources, unemployment and insecurity all intersect with gender to perpetuate conditions of vulnerability, suffering, and violence.

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Introduction

The year was 2005, two years following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when Dr. Zeena Al-Qushtaini was abducted from her workplace by six armed gunmen.¹ Ten days following her abduction, Zeena's body appeared on the side of a highway, a few miles south of Baghdad, Iraq.²

Known to her friends and colleagues as "Lady Zeena," Dr. Al-Qushtaini was a women's activist, divorcee, business partner, and single mother with a full-time job at a local pharmacy.³ According to friends, Dr. Al-Qushtaini always wore the "latest fashion," preferring Western clothing, manicured nails, and highlights over traditional, cultural dress.⁴ However, when her body was discovered, Dr. Al-Qushtaini's blue jeans were replaced by a long black gown known as an abaya, and her highlighted hair was concealed under a headscarf.⁵ Her body was displayed as a warning by extremists to any and all women who attempted to subvert traditional culture and religion. The note pinned to her chest claimed "[s]he was a collaborator against Islam."⁶

Dr. Al-Qushtaini's story does not stand alone. Her name joined a long list of Iraqi women activists violently targeted and silenced since the U.S. invasion in 2003.⁷ Ongoing gender-based violence experienced by Iraqi women exists as a

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daily reality, as Layla A., an Iraqi woman working in an international humanitarian relief agency, relates:⁸

Women are afraid of raising their voices because of fear . . . . Women are targeted . . . . Women are threatened . . . . Women are being attacked and killed . . . . Death is an everyday occurrence.⁹

Predating the U.S. occupation, Iraq provided more rights and freedoms for women and girls than most of its neighboring nations.¹⁰ Although the Ba'athist regime and economic sanctions impacted various areas of the woman's position in the state, Iraqi women were active participants in society before the occupation.¹¹ Beginning in the 1970s, Saddam Hussein built a strong base of Sunni supporters by introducing a number of progressive policies that extended women's rights, free access to education and other social benefits.¹² Following the lifting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries oil embargo, Iraq experienced an unprecedented boom and rapidly developed due to a steep rise in global oil prices.¹³ The newly flourishing economy, therefore, ensured that most of the Iraqi population enjoyed high living standards.¹⁴ In the face of economic prosperity and the expansion of the Iraqi middle class, the state turned its attention towards social advancement, most notably the advancement of Iraqi women by eradicating illiteracy and incorporating them into the labor force.¹⁵

Thus, beginning in the mid-1970s, the Iraqi government began taking steps toward an educated class of Iraqi women.¹⁶ Under the Ba'athist state, the family unit created the foundation of modern citizenship in which the state's "developmental and modernizing social policies targeted the family by issuing legislation that provided the legal underpinnings for women's autonomy[.]"¹⁷ The Ba'athist state subsequently adopted the role of protector to mothers and

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children both legally and socially.¹⁸ Additionally, in 1974, the Ba'athist government decreed that all university graduates, including women, would be guaranteed automatic employment immediately following the conferral of their degrees.¹⁹ Especially in fields of study such as health care, teaching and education, the Iraqi state required graduates to obtain employment in their respective professions promptly following graduation.²⁰ The image of university-educated women working outside the home not only became commonplace, but it became expected as an integral part of social advancement.²¹

The above comparison between the story of Dr. Zeena Al- Qushtaini and the historical background of Iraqi women in the Ba'athist state clearly details that something that sparked Iraqi women's transition from mobile, active members of society to targets of intense, gender-based violence and vulnerability occurred between Saddam Hussein's regime and the status of the Iraqi state today. This Comment argues that the shift began in 2003 with the U.S. led invasion of Iraq and the implementation of interventionist policies, specifically gender mainstreaming via United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (Resolution 1325 or the Resolution). This Comment proposes that by attempting to ameliorate the condition of Iraqi women via gender mainstreaming policies, the U.S. ignored the crumbling social, political and economic state infrastructure that deeply impacted the survival of Iraqi women and the impact westernizing policies would have on Iraqi women, leaving them more vulnerable and susceptible to gender-based violence.

Therefore, in Part I, this Comment traces the creation of Resolution 1325 and the philosophy of gender mainstreaming that drives the Resolution in international conflict. Part II subsequently examines why the U.S. turned to gender mainstreaming policies by tracing U.S. involvement in Iraq and the rhetoric shift from the search for nuclear weapons to the mission of human rights protection in order to retain international support for occupation. In Part III, this Comment argues that the shift to gender mainstreaming policies and rhetoric via Resolution 1325 had devastating consequences for Iraqi women, rendering them more vulnerable to gender-based suffering and violence. Part IV, therefore, argues that gender mainstreaming cannot be used as a one size fits all policy to

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promote gendered rights in areas of international conflict, and instead proposes that Vulnerability Theory could play a crucial role in post-conflict settings by leading to policies that would help ameliorate structural sources of gendered vulnerability without exposing women to heightened gender-based violence.

I. U.N. Resolution 1325: An Overview

A. The Road to Resolution 1325

On October 31, 2000, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.²² Resolution 1325 mainstreamed women into post-conflict resolution, peacebuilding and increased participation in conflict prevention.²³ Resolution 1325 is largely viewed as a momentous breakthrough for women in international relations, and a highly significant piece of international legislation for women's rights on the political grassroots and international stage.²⁴ However, many women in post-conflict communities, grassroots movements, and political organizations argue that the gender mainstreaming that motivates such policies render them fundamentally ineffective when implemented in foreign theaters of conflict.

Both the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights speak in terms of equal rights for men and women. A special commission, The Commission on the Status of Women was established to implement this guarantee.²⁵ In 1995, the Beijing Conference convened and produced the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which was adopted unanimously by 189 countries and built on political agreements aimed at securing the equality of women with men in law and in practice.²⁶ Areas of concern addressed in the declaration included: human rights, violence against women, health, economic empowerment and special concerns of female children.²⁷ The Declaration condemned forced abortions, forced sterilizations, female genital mutilation, dowry burning, and sexual harassment and domestic violence on an international

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scale.²⁸ Inspired by the Beijing Conference, the NGO Working Group on Women and Armed Conflict lobbied the U.N. for a security council resolution to...