Progress Amid Resistance

166 WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAF The government must ratify CEDAW without reservations, implementits provisions in practice, and raise public awareness about thelegal rights its entails. International organizations should establishtraining programs for lawyers and judges focusing on the mechanismsof dealing with international conventions such as CEDAW.AUTONOMY, SECURITY, AND FREEDOM OF THE PERSONAlthough some of the laws enacted by Iraq’s successive 20th-century governmentswere relatively ambitious and progressive with respect to women’srights, the prevailing instability and frequent policy reversals—particularlyunder Saddam Hussein—often put women in severe danger. Iraqi womenseized the opportunity after 2003 to form NGOs and demand protectionfrom the violence, tribal traditions, and social norms that constrained theirlives and prevented them from contributing to their country’s development.Women have succeeded in blocking implementation of a potentiallyharmful constitutional provision on personal status issues, but the last fiveyears have largely been characterized by a stark contrast between constitutionalguarantees and women’s inability to exercise these rights in the faceof widespread violence. Under the pressures of displacement and poverty,women have increasingly fallen victim to human trafficking, sexual exploitation,and a controversial form of temporary marriage.Iraq has long been home to a variety of religious groups, includingSunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians, Jews, Mandaeans, and Yazidis. Thecurrent and previous Iraqi constitutions granted the right of religious freedom,and Articles 37 and 43 of the 2005 charter also prohibit religiouscoercion and protect religious sites, respectively. To convert from one religionto another, however, is very difficult if not impossible in practice,be cause each religion enforces its own restrictions or prohibition on conversion.Both Muslim and Christian women are subject to social ostracismor even murder if they convert to another faith. Moreover, the law does notallow Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, but Muslim men canmarry Christian or Jewish women. 13From 2004 to 2007, Iraq’s sectarian civil war stoked religious extremismand brought serious hardships to women. Various Islamist militiasand gangs harassed, threatened, mutilated, or killed women if they didnot adhere to a harsh interpretation of Islamic behavior. Those livingin an area dominated by another sect were forced to flee their homes in