Progress Amid Resistance

164 WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAand powerlessness sometimes leads women to believe that the only escapeis suicide.In 2000, the Kurdish regional government revoked the laws on mitigatedsentences for honor crimes and, a year later, made them punishable byup to 15 years in prison. These measures, however, did not apply in the restof Iraq. In 2008, Narmin Othman, the current Minister of Environmentand one-time acting minister of state for women’s affairs, led a campaign tomake honor killings throughout the country punishable by life imprisonmentor death. Although many parliamentarians supported the proposal,they faced opposition from the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance and theSunni-led Iraqi Accord Front. Party members claimed that such killings ofwomen are permitted under Shari‘a. 9Articles 19 and 37 of the constitution prohibit arbitrary arrest andun lawful detention, as well as all forms of torture or inhumane acts. Butmany Iraqi women, as well as men, have been unlawfully arrested and de -tained in crowded prisons for months or years without trial or access to alawyer. Prisons allow women to keep their children with them if there is noextended family, especially if the child is an infant, and childcare suppliesare provided. There are separate prisons for males, juveniles, and females.Still, some female inmates allege that they are sexually assaulted, tortured,beaten, and raped by Ministry of Interior guards and police investigatorsseeking confessions. According to one report, the women’s prison ofKadhamiya in Baghdad was infiltrated by Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM), the Shiitemilitia, and operated as a brothel at night. Its 174 female inmates and 17children were later relocated to a new women’s prison. 10Iraqi law considers women to be adults at age 18. However, the courtsdraw many of their rules from Shari‘a, which requires two female witnessesfor their testimony to be considered, whereas a man can stand as a sole witness.The uncorroborated testimony of a woman is acceptable for certaindocuments like marital contracts, although in the Kurdish region a womanneeds a supporting witness for her testimony to be acceptable in these cases.Iraqi courts treat women as equal to men in compensation for wrongfuldeath. Sometimes the court allows the two parties to agree on the compensation,but in other cases the court will decide the appropriate amount.Iraq acceded to the international Convention on the Elimination ofAll Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1986, butwith reservations exempting it from conformity to Article 2 (f ) and (g),which call on states to modify or abolish existing laws and penal codes that