International Women’s Day 2011: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Ukraine, Peru

It was great to see so many women’s celebrations and protests on and around March 8, International Women’s Day (IWD), especially in places that rarely or never had them before. At this moment when all eyes are on the mass movements in North Africa and the Middle East, we present reports from countries previously invaded by the U.S. and one that just toppled a dictator, as well as information sent to MHI about Ukraine and Peru. – A.J. Read More

Iraqi Women Still Fighting for Freedom and Equality

By Anne Jaclard.

Exclusive interview by MHI with Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which she co-founded shortly after the US invasion in 2003.

Iraq is fast becoming a forgotten story to the rest of the world, but women continue to be killed in the streets of Baghdad simply for being women. OWFI activists are still in constant danger of assassination by political Islamists. I still have to sleep in secret locations and travel with guards, and we need guards to protect our office. Fortunately, we share a building with the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI), who support all our endeavors, events, and programs.

One of our new projects is organizing women workers to lay the groundwork for unionization, a joint project with FWCUI. Few women in Iraq are in unions, and most other unions have shown little interest in bringing them in. Our project, called “Women at Work,” consists at this stage of finding interested nurses in private hospitals and helping them learn leadership skills, so they are able to start preparatory committees toward unionization. They are now organizing for a nurses’ annual conference. We found some “experienced” women who were union leaders under Saddam, but they tend to be nationalistic or patriarchist; we want to help new left-leaning leaders to emerge. Read More