Iraqi Independent Women’s Group
General Principles
June 2003
1. No woman should be subjected to any kind of fear. Sufficient security and confidence has to be provided for every Iraqi woman to enable her to resume educational, professional, social and family life within a secure and healthy environment.
2. To respect the right of every individual woman to think and to express her thoughts freely in any aspect of life.
3. Rooting out all unfair laws and statutes that concern gender discrimination, which will inevitably impede the progress of Iraqi women, to be replaced with all the international agreements that Iraq had signed, such as The International Declaration on Human Rights, 1948, and work to make it part of the general Iraqi culture.
4. To secure the political, professional and economical rights of Iraqi women, and encourage them to take their natural place in public life, especially the process of decision making.
5. To establish public channels of media to openly discuss women’s political, economical and social issues, protected from political or advertisers exploitation.
6. To seriously improve the cultural and educational standards of women through modernizing text books, introducing modern technology to girls’ schools, encouraging women to continue with their education and providing adult education to mature women.
7. To support the establishment of women’s groups within the civil society without the need for patronage by the state or any political party.
8. To eradicate gender discrimination at the work place. Jobs are to be obtained through qualification, experience and integrity, with positive discrimination for the advantage of women in the fields that were once monopolized by men.
9. To provide a limited social security for non working women to protect their dignity from want.
10. To review the laws concerning Iraqi citizenship in order to protect any Iraqi woman from losing her citizenship through the marriage of a non Iraqi, in addition to allowing the children of Iraqi women to have an Iraqi citizenship.
11. To improve the services provided for mother and child care, and encourage medical and humanitarian organizations to provide all necessary facilities and equipment, such as hospitals, cures, vaccines, crèches, disability centres, orphanages, etc, in addition to bringing back maternity leave with full pay for a limited period.
12. To establish modern clinics for mature women in all Iraq’s towns and villages, to protect, detect at early stage and cure women against common feminine diseases and changes. Facilities are to include mammograms, smear tests and hormone replacement therapies.
13. To establish cultural, sports and leisure centres for women in order to improve the awareness of mental and physical health of both the individual and the family, and to provide support and encouragement for talented women to take part in national and international competitions.
14. To correct educational and school text books in order to spread the principles of equality, sharing and respect for the others, without ethnic, gender or sectarian discrimination, emphasizing on the importance of the role of women. In addition to resuming mixed gender education based on friendship and respecting the other.
15. To spread environmental awareness on both individual and public levels, and their direct and indirect effects on the health of the individual, the family and the society.
16. To establish relationships with other national, Arab, and international women’s organisations.
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