It's a third story that flew under the radar that is far more telling: that that same week Iraq's minister of women's affairs resigned in protest of the lack of resources to support "an army of widows, unemployed, oppressed and detained women". The Iraqi government estimates there are under 1 million widows in Iraq today but others say the number is closer to 2 million. According to Oxfam's report on Iraqi women over three quarters of widows are not receiving any kind of pension though they are entitled to it, with the majority citing bureaucratic complications or "not being allowed" as the reason. 35.5% of the total respondents said they were acting as the head of the household, many claiming they could not afford to provide water, food, electricity, education, or medical care for their families, while 27% said they were not pursuing education because they had to work to support themselves or their families, and 40% aren't sending their children to school. The survey also found that income levels worsened for 45% of women in 2008 compared to 2006 and 2007, and around 40% said their access to quality medical care had worsened in the same time period.
This was all happening the same year that the Iraqi government ran a budget surplus, to add insult to injury while so many widows cannot access a pension, instead of rectifying this situation the Maliki government responded by offering to pay $8500 to any man that marries a widow. Meanwhile around election time there were reports, that parties used the fear of cutting off aid to widows in their campaigning. Of those that were receiving monthly rations, 45% admitted they only received them intermittently, while the majority of women not receiving rations were because they had trouble having their rations cards transferred to their new place of residence after they were displaced.
Last year al-Amal's survey on the needs of the poor found that only 12.9% of the total polled received any aid whatsoever from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs-the ministry responsible for helping the poor-while 9.3% received any assistance from the Ministry of Displacement and 68.5% received no aid at all: 40% of these families were headed by women, 2/3 of those being widows. Refugees International's 2008 report found there were widespread complaints of sectarian bias affecting the displaced's access to assistance(of both sects in areas where they were the minority,) with even electricity being unevenly available by area. According to the report even in best cases Iraqis report on only getting half the rationed items that they used to and that the quality of the items has declined. The report mentioned that at the time only $25 million of the IOM's $85 million appeal was actually funded while the UN assistance mission was criticized for its focus on immediate aid and excluding community assistance programs and local organizations who were unable to participate in defining the scope of the assistance projects because they didn't have a representative in Amman. The UN's slowness to respond(though by the time of its publication the report acknowledges it was beginning to) as well as the Iraqi government's corruption, inefficiency and just plain unwillingness to address the crisis left a huge vacuum of need that militias could fill forcing literally hundreds of thousands of people to be dependent on them for food, shelter, and electricity in the absence of a state.
Which brings me back to the first two stories in this post. Over the last year there was constant reporting and blog posts dedicated to female suicide bombers in Iraq. Some mentioned mental problems or the use of violence(sexual and otherwise) to persuade recruits but very few considered what other factors are making Iraqi women so vulnerable in the first place. And why would they consider that, as far as the media is concerned things have been going great in Iraq the past twelve months. The Guardian can't make up it's mind; the British say that Basrah is booming even as honor killings are on the rise.
...or such could be said of the coverage unill very recently.
The BBC drew a link between the new improved situation and the oppourtunities it's created for women in Iraq:
She estimates that 40% of all prostitutes in Iraq are widows. Improvements in security have certainly led to some shady opportunities for those who have lost their husbands and income. Nightclubs have started to reopen in Baghdad. We visited one of them. The scene would previously have been unthinkable.
...I talk to the singer who works there. He says women are employed just to dance and talk to the customers. But he tells me there are many other nightclubs in Baghdad where widows will leave with men for the right price.
NYT:
Officials at social service agencies tell of widows coerced into “temporary marriages” — relationships sanctioned by Shiite tradition, often based on sex, which can last from an hour to years — to get financial help from government, religious or tribal leaders. Other war widows have become prostitutes, and some have joined the insurgency in exchange for steady pay. The Iraqi military estimates that the number of widows who have become suicide bombers may be in the dozens.
In the past several weeks, even as the government has formed commissions to study the problem, it has begun a campaign to arrest beggars and the homeless, including war widows...Efforts to increase the government stipend for widows — currently about $50 a month and an additional $12 per child — have stalled. By comparison, the price of a five-liter container of gasoline, used for cars as well as home generators, is about $4.
Still, only about 120,000 widows — roughly one in six — receive any state aid, according to government figures. Widows and their advocates say that to receive benefits they must either have political connections or agree to temporary marriages with the powerful men who control the distribution of government funds. “It is blackmail,” said Samira al-Mosawi, chairwoman of the women’s affairs committee in Parliament. “We have no law to treat this point. Widows don’t need temporary support, but a permanent solution.”
I thought the quote in the same NYT article from the head of the children's charity was particularly apt:
Questioning the government’s priorities, he added, “They are busy building public fountains when we don’t have water in the sink.”
