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Violence has always been a problem in the world, but lately the actions taken in Iraq against Iraqi women top the list as some of the most vicious crimes. Under Saddam Hussein’s rule, women felt safer but lately the crime rate has sky rocked against Iraqi women. The United States so-called “liberation” of Iraqi women has made Iraqi women less free than they were under the Bathist regime. When women go outsides their houses they have to take a [|weapon with them in case of an emergency]. Suad Mohammed, an employee in Adamiyah municipality in northwestern Baghdad, carries a pistol in her handbag. “As an Iraqi woman I do not think it is safe for me to step out of my house freely. So whenever I go out I carry a weapon with me to defend myself,” said Mohammed. More than forty-four cases have been tried of committing “honor crimes.” Honor crimes are when Iraqi women do not wear the hijab, do not dress appropriate or even if they wear makeup outside their house. Out on the streets, if the women do not wear the hijab, they face being abducted by an unknown gunman, who sexually abuses her and then kills her. Dead bodies of girls and women are found in rivers and on waste grounds with a veil tied around their head, as a message that you better wear the hijab or this will be you next time. A women right campaigner from Marugi stated, “At home, a women faces violence from her father, husband, brother and even from her son. It has become a kind of a new culture in the society.” (By NAFIA ABDUL JABAR and MARWA SABAH). The Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) just recently issued a freighting report showing of public executions. The Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq has estimated that no less than 30 women are executed every month for honor crime reasons. One of the more horrifying accounts was a story of a young woman dragged by a wire wound around her neck to a close-by football field and then hung to the goal post. They then pierced her body with bullets. Her brother came running trying to defend his sister, he was also shot and killed being called a traitor. If a women escapes from any type of torture and goes to the Iraqi police, the Iraqi police will not do anything. If the women are raped, they make it out alive and then they go to the police, they made a big mistake. The police will call it dishonoring to their family and threaten to kill her if she tells anyone. The women are forced to keep the truth about what happened to them a secret. Many times, the women that were abducted and escaped head towards their relatives homes for an escape. Many times the abductor will not go looking for any women that have escaped because they know nothing will happen to them. For the first time in fifty years women’s equal rights are being overturned. Iraqi men are now killing their wives and not being charged, even though there is a lot of evidence against the killing of the woman. If Iraqi women are charged with murder of their husband with no evidence against them, the will be charged guilty. Women of all ages are now forced to comply with dress codes when they leave the house.  Suad, a former accountant and mother of four, stated “I resisted for a long time, but last year I started wearing the hijab, after I was threatened by several Islamist militants in front of my house. They are terrorizing the whole neighborhood, behaving as if they were in charge. And they are actually controlling the area. No one dares to challenge them. A few months ago they distributed leaflets around the area warning people to obey them and demanding that women should stay at home.” Girls are being kept out of school because their parents are afraid that they will be abducted from their schools. Girls’ enrollment and attendance is on a steep dive in Iraq. Armed conservative religious groups are pressuring schools and workplaces to force the women to wear the hijab because they are under threat of attack or abduction. In one recount, heavily armed religious extremists repeatedly stormed into university classrooms and threatened to kill women not wearing the hijab. Seventy-six percent of Iraqi women say that girls in their families are forbidden from attending school The violence against Iraqi women is not a so-called women’s issue, but the issue belongs to the men, they are the perpetrators. Women’s lives have changed dramatically and women are beginning to look different across most men in Iraq. Women are now too afraid to wear anything but conservative dresses. Not wearing the hijab every second of the day is out of the question for most women. Young girls at the age of ten are now being forced to wear the veil by their families, afraid that they will be killed. More than an estimated four thousand women have been kidnapped since April 2008. This does not include all the women that have escaped from the torture of their abductors and not reported the crime to authorities. The UN officials in Baghdad say that they are very concerned that religious extremists are intimidating girls and women into wearing the veil and they are working to fix the problem. Fewer cases are being reported but you can not know if it is because of the fear of being killed for being dishonoring to their family or if it is because [|violence against Iraqi women] has decreased. Works Cited http://youtube.com/watch?v=UZj0nsj2DyE   James Meek. __Marines Losing the__ __ Battle ____ for Hearts and Minds __ .Tuesday, March 25,2003. 6 May 2008. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/images/0325-05.jpg  [|Kavita N. Ramdas], [|Global Fund for Women]. __Iraqi Women's Bodies Are Battlefields for War Vendettas__. [|December 19, 2006]. 22 April,2008 http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/45540/ 
 * [|atmain] . **__ NBC Report on Violence against Iraqi Women __** . **   November 23, 2007. 6 May 2008

[|Lesley Abdela] . __ Iraq ____ 's war on women __ . July 18,2005 . 23 April,2008
http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-iraqconflict/women_2681.jsp 

NAFIA ABDUL JABBAR and MARWA SABAH. __Impact of war on Iraq's women__. Thursday April 17, 2008. 22 April, 2008
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2008/4/17/lifefocus/20756985&sec=lifefocus Interesting that you chose a Maylasian source which could give a different perpsective Nadje Sadig Al-Ali. __Iraq____’s Women under Pressure__. May 2007. 24 April, 2008 http://mondediplo.com/2007/05/05iraqwomen = =  [|Silvia Spring] and [|Larry Kaplow] | NEWSWEEK. __Sacrificed to the Surge__. Apr 14, 2008 Issue 23 April, 2008 http://www.newsweek.com/id/130602