Abstract

WOMEN UNDER SIEGE

This article explores the plight of Islamic women in the war areas. All the shades are drawn in Raba's house on a wide residential street in one of Baghdad's more affluent neighborhoods. None of these women leave this home, even so many months after the war came to its so-called end. Millions of women have found themselves living under such de facto house arrest since the coalition forces claimed Baghdad in April. And now, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) is treating a growing human rights crisis for women as an extracurricular issue at best, leaving women at the mercy of thugs on the streets and the religious parties that have rushed into the political vacuum. Other women activists are doing their best to work within the Islamic system, like Manal Omar, a Muslim American who heads the Iraq field office of the Washington-based group Women for Women International.