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Women's rights in Iraq
The Iraqi Constitution states that a quarter of the government must be made up of women. However, the women that hold position in the government still have little to no power. Often, the women in government are just relatives of other leaders. Serious women leaders in Iraq are unheard of. But Iraq has been a leader on women’s rights for quite some time. In the 1950's it became the first Arab country to have a female minister and to have a law that gave women the ability to ask for divorces. Women attained the right to vote and run for public office in 1980. In 1986, Iraq created CEDAW, the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. However, during Saddam Hussein’s rule, Iraq took many steps backwards in terms of women’s rights. Under his rule, women had no form of governmental power. Women had to lobby the American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, to mandate the requirement of a quarter of the Parliament’s members being women. There is also a large divide among the women themselves, some more modern women wanting a larger percent of women in the Iraqi government still, and some more traditional women believing that they and others are not qualified enough to hold any sort of position in the Iraqi government. Another existing issue is the increasing amount of illiterate females in the country. In 1987 approximately 75 percent of Iraqi women were literate. In 2000, Iraq had the lowest regional adult literacy levels, with the percentage of literate women at less than 25 percent. This makes it increasingly difficult to put educated women in a position of power. Although there are many issues with the current spread of power among genders in Iraq, they are one of the more Westernized Arab countries. But, there is hope for females in Iraq. After Hussein's fall in 2003, women’s leaders in Iraq saw it as a key opportunity to gain more power in Parliament. The leaders asked for a quota that would have seen that at least 40 percent of the Parliament to be women. In the 2010 National Elections, a group of twelve women started their own party based on women’s issues, such as a job’s program for Iraq’s 700,000 widows. The United State’s involvement in Iraq was seen as detrimental to women. Since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was elected as Prime Minister of Iraq, not one women has been appointed to his senior cabinet. Many women across the country, especially young women, are afraid to voice their political voices for fear of harming their reputations. But when they do become active politically, their are seen as being influence by the United States and trying to push a liberal agenda. Constitutionally, women lost a number of key rights after the United States entered Iraq. The Family Statutes law, which guarantees women equal rights when it comes to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and custody. The law was replaced by one that gave power to religious leaders and allowed them to dictate family matters according to their interpretation of their chosen religious text.