Lifting the ban on women’s shelters in Iraq: promoting change in conflict
With
the ISIS invasion and ensuing crisis displacing over three million people and leaving over eight million in need of humanitarian
assistance, it’s no surprise that local authorities and the international
community are struggling to meet the critical demand for shelter. This is
especially true in hotly contested cities such
as Samara and Hawija, where it’s too risky for most international relief workers and
sparse access through ISIS-controlled checkpoints.
Yet,
despite the overwhelming need, the Iraq central government
policy does not authorize local NGOs to run shelters. With no end in sight to the conflict, and despite
government obstacles, Iraqi women’s organizations have been stepping up
to meet the needs of those most vulnerable – running clandestine safe houses that
operate in the shadows.
Having
seen these shelters first-hand and talking with the survivors they house,
has led me to question: Why, if there is a crisis-level need for shelter, does
the Iraqi government maintain a policy that stymies critically needed temporary
housing and threatens the safety of those willing to provide it?
Yanar Mohammed leading a women's rally in
Baghdad's Firdos Square. Photo: Roj Women's Assoc.
According
to Yanar Mohammed director of the Organization
for Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), “Shelters are thought of as
encouraging women to disobey their husbands and daughters to disobey their parents.
This leads to the presumption that a shelter – a place where a group of
immoral women reside without a male guardian – is likely a brothel.” This is
not the first casting of women’s shelters as houses of ill repute; the notion
is not uncommon to the region. In Afghanistan for example, shelter providers
routinely face harassment from officials.
Clandestine
shelters, while vital, are rife with risk. They offer meager accommodations in
only a few places. Without policy protections, safe houses are left vulnerable
to police and militia raids. This leaves women in hiding unprotected from
family members or ex-boyfriends who track them down for escaping domestic
violence, forced marriage or attempted honor killings. The only option for
shelter staff and residents is to routinely relocate, avoiding unwanted
attention from nosey neighbors who have occasionally mistaken safe houses for
brothels. This adds to a cycle of making them harder to find by those in need.
Technically,
nothing on the books in Iraqi law explicitly bars local organizations from
running shelters. The quasi-autonomous Kurdistan
region in northern Iraq started to see a small handful of NGO-run
shelters with the passage of a 2011 law prohibiting domestic violence that sparked new collaboration
between women’s groups and the regional government. In central Iraq, the
Combating Human Trafficking Law of 2012 states that the
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs should create shelters. Unfortunately,
central bureaucrats have interpreted this policy to mean that only the government can run shelters,
which either do not exist or sit vacant. An exception is made for international
aid agencies.
Yet,
the tide is turning, because the scale of the crisis demands it. Faced with an
influx of displaced people, Iraqi NGO shelter providers have already
successfully negotiated written agreements with local tribal leaders from the
Karbala and Samara Governorates, permitting them to provide safe housing.
While
women’s rights activists are working to obtain written agreements from other
affected townships, they have also turned their sights to Baghdad. A coalition
of local organizations led by OWFI is advocating for the central government to
adopt a national framework allowing for NGO-run
shelters. OWFI’s international partner organization MADRE has started working with key donor
states and U.N. experts. CUNY Law School is helping to provide documentation on
human rights abuses to illustrate the need. The goal is to expand temporary
housing in Iraq.
This
is the paradox of catastrophe. The moments of our undoing are simultaneously
our opportunities to remake ourselves and our communities. The challenge lies
in spotting and seizing those moments. Local activists know that changing the
shelter policy, in this moment of flux, could broaden the safety net for women
fleeing all forms of violence. The immediate needs generated by the current
crisis create the opportunity to push for longer-term policy changes. These
agreements could remain in perpetuity and work to normalize the very concept of
sheltering in Iraq.
Yanar speaking at the Irish Mission to the UN in New York
this week. Photo: WILPF
This year marks the 15th
anniversary of passing UN Security Council Resolution 1325, obligating the
participation of women in peace building. On
Tuesday, Oct 13th Yanar addressed
the United Nations Security Council during its Open Debate on women, peace and
security, where she called attention to the crisis that has ensued from ISIS
and highlighted the Iraqi government’s prohibition on local women’s groups’
efforts to provide housing.
Changing
Iraq’s shelter policy will save lives. It will enable local NGOs to come out of
the shadows, secure new funding and spur local job creation. Women’s
organizations not only provide shelter for the most vulnerable, they also act
as first responders providing much-needed aid and peer-to-peer support – without
the sectarian strings often attached to religious groups and associations. They
help displaced children get enrolled in school. They offer assistance for
reunification with family members. They help to reduce illiteracy and the spread of disease, and chip away at the number
of women and children most vulnerable to violence. They also work to alleviate
the economic burdens placed on local governorates left scrambling to address
masses of fleeing people pouring into their townships.
By
amending the shelter restriction to help meet the needs of conflict-related displacement,
women’s groups can also help to those both directly and indirectly affected by
the crisis, but more notable, they reach those left most vulnerable by the
conflict including women escaping trafficking and honor killings as well as LGBT persons.
This
is true today, it was true before the ISIS invasion, and it will be true
tomorrow.
Tackling
the obstacles to realizing basic rights that existed before conflict as a way
of addressing immediate needs just makes sense. It leads to more effective,
immediate-term solutions while also helping to dismantle long-term structural
violence. The international community could take a lesson from Iraqi advocates
working on the frontlines of service provisions. As Yanar points
out “What is primarily lacking is political will by Member States and UN
Leadership.” States would be wise to heed her words yesterday.
After
all, someday when the war is over, and most of the internationals are gone,
their work will continue.
Read our series of in-depth articles on UN SCR 1325- fifteen years on