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[andrewducker]

For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes.

Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as sharia.

  The order, narrowly approved by the 25-member council in a closed-door session Dec. 29, was reportedly sponsored by conservative Shiite members. The order is now being opposed by several liberal members as well as by senior women in the Iraqi government.

The council's decisions must be approved by L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, and aides said unofficially that his imprimatur for this change was unlikely. But experts here said that once U.S. officials turn over political power to Iraqis at the end of June, conservative forces could press ahead with their agenda to make sharia the supreme law. Spokesmen for Bremer did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

  Zakia Ismael Hakki, a female retired judge and outspoken opponent of the new order, said Thursday that since 1959, civil family law had been developed and amended under a series of secular governments to give women a "half-share in society" and an opportunity to advance as individuals, no matter what their religion.

"This new law will send Iraqi families back to the Middle Ages," Hakki said. "It will allow men to have four or five or six wives. It will take away children from their mothers. It will allow anyone who calls himself a cleric to open an Islamic court in his house and decide about who can marry and divorce and have rights. We have to stop it."

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Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say that I was surprised. IIRC, you used to be mildly for this war (although obviously not for how it was actually handled). I'm curious if reports like this have changed your mind.

[andrewducker]

I'm mildly in favour of regime change provided it's well handled.

Well handled, in this case, means staying around for 10 years afterwards and rebuilding the country, educating everyone and turning it into a decent place to live. Say, for instance, something on the same level as what happened in Japan following WW2.

Hanging about for 2 years and then saying "They've got their bombed country vaguely under control again. We're off" is just ridiculous.