Iraqi Women Crushed by Lawlessness

under US occupation. "the US occupation has ushered in an explosive rise in crime which has wreaked havoc on once genteel areas, and driven women indoors.

Amid the ordinary lawlessness of a city of 5 million with a barely functioning police force, there are particular horrors for women. . . The breakdown of law and order began with the departure of Saddam Hussein's regime, and with it the brutal system of control that had made Baghdad a relatively safe city for its size. . . women have been raped to avenge wrongs committed by men of the same clan, or singled out for their own associations with the regime. Some have been abducted and sold into prostitution, in a traffic where the price of a woman is about £60, according to the police. Still others were punished for offences against Iraq's code of behaviour for women. "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1060813,00.html

So much for the liberation and democracy.

TV anchor woman Barbara Walters did a story on gender roles in
Kuwait several years before the Gulf War. She noted that women
customarily walked a few feet behind their husbands.
In a follow-up story, she returned to Kuwait recently and observed
that men now walked several yards behind their wives. Ms. Walters
approached one of the Kuwaiti women and said, "This is marvelous! Can
you tell the free world just what it was that enabled women here to
achieve this total reversal of roles?"


"Land mines," replied the woman.