Milon Nagi - When speaking to Americans, Yanar Mohammed is confronted repeatedly with the belief that Iraqi women’s rights are protected under occupation by the United States. In reality, says Mohammed, director of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), after several generations of economically independent women, Iraq is now in the grip of the “genetically mutilated beast” of fundamentalist politicized Islam—Islamism. In addition, according to a recent Madre report, abuse and murder of women have become endemic, at the hands of both criminal gangs who abduct victims and a proliferation of sectarian militias—many U.S. trained, funded and armed.

U.S. authorities used such mercenaries, says Madre, to consolidate power, pitting such Shiite groups as Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army against Sunni insurgent militias. Policing of women is central to these groups’ campaigns. In Baghdad’s now segregated neighborhoods, Mohammed reports, women’s dress has become a “flag of the political parties.” Sunni and Shiite militias compete, she says, over how much “their” women should cover up. In Basra, under the Mahdi Army, wearing pants or going outside without a headscarf is now punishable by death. Read all @ the Womans Media Center