Violence in Iraq increasingly targeting women
November 23, 2006
VIENNA: Women are increasingly the victims of violence in Iraq, as direct targets of assassinations and as widows left without support after the deaths of their husbands, an Iraqi women’s activist said on Wednesday.
“Many women activists have been murdered, many women university professors. Many women physicians have been killed, women in the police forces, reporters and journalists,” Rajaa al-Khuzai, president of the Iraqi National Council of Women, told a news conference in Vienna. “We are losing an average 100 Iraqi (men) every day ... so I think (we have an additional) 3,000 widows every month... and all of them are young and have no support for them and their families,” she added. Al-Khuzai, a trained gynaecologist, was one of the first women in Iraq’s interim Governing Council and was a member of the drafting committee for the new Iraqi constitution. She then set up the Iraqi Widows Organisation, which promotes women’s rights and provides material and other support to mostly young widows, often with children.
“We need to train and educate these young women ... by educating women we are educating all Iraqis,” she said, adding her organisation could help secure the future of Iraq.
“Many women activists have been murdered, many women university professors. Many women physicians have been killed, women in the police forces, reporters and journalists,” Rajaa al-Khuzai, president of the Iraqi National Council of Women, told a news conference in Vienna. “We are losing an average 100 Iraqi (men) every day ... so I think (we have an additional) 3,000 widows every month... and all of them are young and have no support for them and their families,” she added. Al-Khuzai, a trained gynaecologist, was one of the first women in Iraq’s interim Governing Council and was a member of the drafting committee for the new Iraqi constitution. She then set up the Iraqi Widows Organisation, which promotes women’s rights and provides material and other support to mostly young widows, often with children.
“We need to train and educate these young women ... by educating women we are educating all Iraqis,” she said, adding her organisation could help secure the future of Iraq.
