Thursday March 26, 2009
A voice for the abused
By WONG LI ZA
An activist’s fight against honour killings.
DOA Khalil Aswad was stoned to death on April 7, 2007, in the town centre of Bashiqa, Iraq, in front of hundreds of people. The authorities were present and paved the way for the horrific crime to happen.
Doa, 17, whose family adheres to the Yazidi faith (a religion that combines Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian and Islamic elements), was taken from her house by some Yazidi men who found that she was in love with a Muslim Arab man and had visited him.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, hundreds of women burn themselves and thousands of girls are genitally mutilated every year. Rega Rauf (pic) is one woman combating such atrocities. In June 1996, Shino was shot dead by her uncle for insisting on attending her mother’s funeral.
In April 1997, Seyran, who hails from the town of Samood, was strangled to death by her cousin who later prevented people from burying her body. The cousin disliked the fact that Seyran was working outside the home.
In June 1998 in the Bawanur district, a student named Khayal Nawzad slept with a boy. When her cousin found out, he broke both her hands, cut her flesh and burnt it before finally shooting her in the chest and head.
These crimes happened in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Between 1990 and 1999, there were 4,000 honour killings in the estimated five million population of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Hundreds of women burnt themselves and thousands of girls were genitally mutilated every year, something which still happens today.
One woman combating such atrocities is activist Rega Rauf.
Rega, 40, was one of the speakers at the recent Women of Independence Conference in Kuala Lumpur, organised by Intelligence Business Networks to commemorate International Women’s Day.
Rega hails from Iraqi Kurdistan, a region that spreads over Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria in the Middle East. The region has seen shocking brutalities against women after the Gulf War in 1991.
It began with the killing of prostitutes. Then it continued with killing women who questioned traditions or protested against their husbands or fathers, who dressed as they liked, or had open relations with men.
Many of the women were also raped before being killed. Countless were pregnant when they were murdered.
Such crimes are known as “honour killings”, or the killing of women who brought perceived dishonour to their families. What is more atrocious is that such crimes go unpunished due to existing systems and beliefs.
Women who are killed in such a manner are “guilty” of acts such as refusing to take orders from their husbands, choosing their own marriage partners, bringing “shame” to their family as a result of being raped, committing adultery and participating in social gatherings without their families’ permission.
“We know of a man who killed his wife because he did not like her cooking – and he got away with it,” said Rega during an interview.
Some women committed suicide by burning themselves when they could no longer endure the physical and emotional abuse by family and relatives.
In 1993, Rega and a few others founded the Independent Women’s Organisation (IWO) in Iraqi Kurdistan to protest against such random acts of aggression against women.
Also represented in Canada, England and Australia, IWO fights for women’s rights, freedom, equality and safety.
“Talking about women’s rights in Kurdistan means going against family, religion, culture and society. It goes against the norm,” said Rega, 40.
Rega has published a book entitled Help! A Voice From Kurdistan, Iraq and an autobiography in Kurdish entitled Women’s Movement in Kurdistan and Behind Family Bars.
Help! is a report on honour killings in Iraqi Kurdistan that lists over 500 cases of women who were either murdered or who had killed themselves between 1991 and 1998.
Rega has gone through much hardship herself. Soon after she set up IWO in 1993, her own family threatened her with death.
“They said I brought shame to them by doing what I did, but they could not silence me,” she said.
Rega said her two brothers hit her and threatened her life. She has had no contact with them since 1995.
She recalled that the saddest point during that time was when her mother visited her in Kurdistan one day, bringing some sweets. “I dared not eat them for fear that my brothers might have poisoned the sweets.”
In 1996, Rega became the editor of a local newspaper, Equality, and wrote articles considered anti-Islamic. She began to receive death threats from Islamic groups.
“They talked about me in every mosque,” said Rega, who is also part of the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. She learnt to use a gun but even then did not feel safe.
Rega said some women’s groups in Kurdistan were beginning to change their stand about honour killings.
Rega eventually fled to Sweden in 2000. She has a 15-year-old son from an earlier marriage and a three-year-old son with her present husband, a Swede.
Her dream is to have a modern, secular Iraqi Government which believes in women’s rights.
“My eldest son is very supportive of my work. He is proud of me and what I do,” said Rega, breaking into a warm smile for the first time during the interview.
