Why Iraqi Women Aren't Complaining

Iraqi family law is the most progressive in the Middle East. Divorce cases are heard only in the civil courts (effectively outlawing the "repudiation" religious divorce); polygamy is outlawed unless the first wife welcomes it (and very few do); and women divorcees have an equal right to custody of their children.

The "liberators" of Iraq can take no credit for this. The secular family code was introduced in 1959. Saddam Hussein weakened its inheritance provisions but left it mostly unchanged. Now it is under threat from the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. IGC resolution 137 will, if implemented, eliminate the idea of civil marriage and place several aspects of family law - including divorce and inheritance rights - directly under the control of religious authorities.

I was in Baghdad when the resolution was issued, on my first visit home since 1975 when, fearful for my life and the safety of my family, I left the country of my birth. I noticed with amazement how little attention any of the women I met paid to resolution 137. Only 100 women demonstrated in the city's Firdose Square to condemn it. Where was the outcry?

I had been terrified that my years away would have made me a stranger. But the minute I stepped into my family's house, I was at home. Over countless cups of Turkish coffee, I asked every woman I met why she seemed not to give a damn about a resolution that is surely going to change women's lives for the worse. I was met with kind smiles and the same weary reply: it's not going to change a thing.

Ten months after their "liberation", Iraqi women have only just started to leave their houses to carry out ordinary tasks such as taking their kids to school, shopping or visiting neighbors. They do so despite the risk of kidnapping or worse. It is women and children who bear the brunt of the absence of law and order, the lack of security and the availability of weapons.

Ten months on, most women graduates are still unemployed. Seventy-two per cent of working Iraqi women were public employees, and the public sector is in tatters. Other workers are suffering too. My niece, Luma, is a biologist. She was unemployed during Saddam's era because she wasn't a member of the Ba'ath party. She is unemployed now because she refused to get a tazkia (a recommendation form) from one of the main political parties represented in the IGC.

As a housewife and a mother, her daily life, like that of most Iraqi women, follows the same tedious routine: get gas for the cooker (make sure the cylinder doesn't leak - gas explosions are not unusual); buy oil (make sure it's not mixed with water); buy petrol for the car (she will queue for three hours, but the men's queues are even longer so the task falls to her).

At the sound of special hooting many of Baghdad's women rush outdoors to pay the refuse collectors to collect the rubbish (in the heart of old Baghdad, rubbish piles as high as the buildings. Women and children search there for anything they can sell or eat).

The electricity supply hasn't improved in the past 10 months either, despite Paul Bremer's claims. In my family's house in Palestine Street, a middle-class area, the women have to deal with three different supply sources to get just 12 hours of power a day. The first source is the national grid, from which we receive electricity for two hours then are cut off for three (we're lucky - in al-Adhamia the on/off ratio is 2:4; residents there believe that they are being punished because they support the resistance). The second source is the local mosque, which acquired a generator during the looting and now supplies 100 houses with three hours of electricity per day. The third source is the house generator, which must be handled with special care. To add to the general misery, there is still no postal service in the country and no telephone services in most areas.

There has been no shortage of initiatives to "enlighten" Iraqi woman and encourage them to play an active role in the country's reconstruction. In one, the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office declared "the need, urgently, for a women's tent meeting in Baghdad with a declaration in compliance with 1325".

Patricia Hewitt tried to establish a high council for Iraqi women. Condoleezza Rice opened a center for women's human rights in Diwanya. In her opening speech - delivered via satellite - she assured Iraqi women that "we are with you in spirit". It was attended by commanders and soldiers of the occupying forces, but by very few Iraqi women. Meanwhile in Diwanya itself, local farmers (many of them women) were unable to start the winter season because of unexploded cluster bombs on their land.

Iraqi political parties are also desperate to employ women to boost their own credibility. So why are Iraqi women not welcoming the chance to be a model for others in the Middle East?

Over countless coffees, the women explain. They are educated, resilient and survivors of atrocities of Saddam's regime. They replaced male workers during the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, and set up cottage industries to support their families during 13 years of brutal sanctions. They are not about to forgive the US or British governments for strengthening Saddam's regime, imposing sanctions, and destroying their cities in two wars. Iraqi women know that the occupation forces are in the country to guard their own interests, not those of the Iraqis.

In refusing to take part in any initiative by the US-led occupation, or its Iraqi allies, women are practicing passive resistance. They adopted the same technique against Saddam's despised General Union of Iraqi women. Then, they managed to cause the collapse of one of the richest, most powerful institutions for women in the Middle East. Perhaps they will do so again.

· Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and painter. She is a former political prisoner of the Ba'ath regime.