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Radical Islamisation threatens progressive family legislation and the elimination of women's freedom to make their own choices, writes LIZ PAYNE

There was one place where the usually joyous International Women's Day celebrations took place under a menacing shadow. Many women came to the streets cloaked head to toe in black, as if in mourning.

This was Baghdad on Saturday March 8 this year.

The following day in London, a woman who had been there on the streets talked almost in disbelief about the draft law approved by the Iraqi cabinet two weeks ago and now with parliament for approval.

The new family legislation enshrined in the so called Ja'afari Personal Status Law (after a Shi'ite imam) and put forward by the Islamic Shia Al-Fadhila Party will, if approved, turn the clock back for Iraqi women and girls by not just decades but centuries.

Its contents, say some commentators, will impose an Iranian-style theocracy and campaigners have dubbed it "a crime against humanity."

It will invest jurisdiction over family matters with the Shi'ite Islamic establishment, which will hear cases brought under this legislation in religious tribunals presided over by an Islamic judge.

It will completely eradicate the current hard-won secular code - dating from 1959 - which enshrines women's rights in marriage, child custody and inheritance law and which has been regarded as the most progressive in the Middle East.

Under the provisions of the new law men will exercise medieval control over women, with jurisdiction over every aspect of their lives.

Men will have the right to sex with their wives whenever they want it, giving them carte blanche to assault and rape with impunity.

See the article here:

Morning Star :: Progressives mount resistance to new law