Women Demonstrate Demanding Equal Rights

Small groups of women demonstrated in cities all over Iraq on Wednesday, demanding that equal rights for them be specified in the Fundamental Law now being drafted by the IGC, and that 40% of seats in parliament be set aside for women. The set-aside of seats for women has already been implemented in Pakistan. In most Western democracies, few women are elected to parliament. Many Iraqi women feel that they should demand that their rights be spelled out now, because once the CPA is dissolved, conservative Iraqi men will press for restrictions on women. Perhaps they know what happened in Afghanistan.