Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/ashraf-khalil/)
Women’s religious education classes in Shiite mosques are gaining momentum and new students in Iraq. But activists there question whether newfound Shiite freedoms in the country will serve to empower women.
Iraq’s women’s rights activists are satisfied for now with a 25-percent quota on female representation in the country’s temporary constitution. It’s less than they wanted, but still more than the representation of women in the U.S. Congress.
The female contingent of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps is turning heads in the country and putting a female face on the struggle to stabilize Iraq.
Women represent one eighth of Iraq’s Governing Council until elections are held later this year. Activists there say without U.S. backed quotas for equal female representation in government, women’s rights are sure to be compromised.
Amid surging crime in postwar Baghdad, sexual violence and abductions of women appear to be increasing. But with police stations focused on bombing threats, no one is counting the women being attacked or sold into prostitution.
Egypt appointed its first female judge, Tahani Al Gebali, this year. Good, say observers, however, they add, she may become a lonely pioneer unless the nation’s prosecutors’ offices–the training ground for most judges–hire female lawyers this fall.
Egypt’s hit movie this summer has been shocking audiences with its explicit subject matter. But it’s not about sex, it’s about the real-life difficulties of four modern couples and it focuses on women, some of whom just happen to be wearing veils.