Women, Development, Iraq: An Interview With Ban Saraf

Ban Saraf describes herself as a child of war.

Born in Iraq as the youngest of 12, Saraf's family moved to Lebanon when she was a child. Her father was fleeing Saddam Hussein's regime.

Saraf says from the age of 13, bombs and corpses on the street were a common event. It was an experience that ultimately led Saraf to the profession she holds today—that of a international civil society expert and activist.

Just a little under two years ago, Saraf left a comfortable existence in the United States to return to Iraq—the country she vowed never to visit again after briefly living there in her 20s.

"I had gone to Lebanon at the age of eight. In 1983 my home was bombed while I was still in it," she says.

"At that stage I still had Iraqi citizenship and that's about the only thing I had still related to Iraq. I had never lived there or visited as an adult. But it was the only place that would accept me in the world. It was a sad thing I think," Saraf says.

But Saraf says Iraq as an adult was very different from her childhood memories of it. During her two years in the country, she devoted most of her energies to trying to leave, and finally succeeded.

"That was a tough time. I had physically just survived the Lebanese war up till 1983—everything you can imagine—guns to the head. And to go to Iraq with the SCUD missiles and Saddam, it was tough."

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Challenging the Status Quo

Tough is a word that also springs to Saraf's mind when she thinks about life for women in Iraq today.

"Women today have no say in where their country is going," she says. "They don't go out. They can't drive. There are reasons of security, sure, but men get bombed too, frankly."

Saraf's assessment is based on firsthand knowledge. She worked in Iraq for the non profit organization, RTI International, a United States based contractor of the US Agency for International Development.

Her job was part of the reconstruction process working on "building local councils from the bottom up—from the neighborhood up to the city council level."

Saraf says it was work that generated a mixed response. "For the most part, as an effort itself, people at the beginning were extremely welcoming to the idea," she says. "They needed so many services at the time."

"People thought that they would get safety and security and jobs. Before thinking of democratic processes and participation and all that, their main effort was getting jobs, getting security and getting fed. The embargo did a lot and I wasn't aware of that."

The task brought her face to face with the issues confronting women in Iraq today—especially given that L. Paul Bremer, the top civilian administrator under the occupation, had ordered that each of the city councils adhere to a quota—that about 20 percent of its members be women.

"And I think they confused liberation and democracy with doing exactly what you want to do. And so suddenly when they were given instructions and directions to share that, they found it difficult sometimes."

Iraqi women became an issue rather than part of society.

It's a by-product, Saraf says, of war.

"In every conflict you look at, women are there when needed. Some families starved during the embargo—there was no money, no funds by Saddam. The women I'm sure worked very hard to feed the kids.

"The first thing that happens now is the men go out and the men find work and the men are making the laws and its very much post-conflict and we never learn from that."

Saraf says as a person working in the field, she appreciated Ambassador Bremer's decision to opt for quotas for women.

"It's not a political statement at all. But without that, you would not see some of the women now that are very active attending conferences.

"They are wonderful, active women. The problem we now have is that we have quotas. But its quantity not quality and that is not acceptable to a lot of women.

"They tell you 'these women don't represent me. A party put them in and that doesn't mean they will go after what is good for me—my agenda, my needs'—and they are very different from a man's needs in Iraq today."

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Establishing the Agenda

On the question though whether women today in Iraq have consensus about their wants and needs, Saraf says women in the workshops in Baghdad she attended did reach agreement—that they should not have a consensus or agenda for women.

"They agreed. They actually see themselves first as citizens," she says.

However, Saraf admits in the beginning there was little bit of tension among women—between those who wore a head scarf and those who didn't.

"I said stop and within a minute literally they saw there was a lot more. They saw that they could work together just so they as women were heard, so that other priorities could come into play."

So Saraf says the only common agenda among women is that they are citizens first, "rather than that's what I want as a woman."

Looking Back

Saraf says she finds its disappointing that so few women are visible on the streets of Iraq today.

"On the street unfortunately there aren't a lot of women. That I've noticed a lot and that's unfortunate. Even compared to 1983 when I went back, women are not present publicly and I would like to bet anyone who would argue differently," she says.

Another factor that bothers her is the girls and education. Saraf says in Iraq today all indicators show there are now fewer girls going to school, a move she says in stark contrast to Saddam Hussein's time.

"Saddam forced girls and boys to go to school," she says. "And all indicators are showing that girls are not going to school as much—perhaps there is no money, perhaps nobody forces you.

"You're talking to someone who couldn't wait to leave that country when Saddam was ruling it and promised never to go back while he was ruling it. But we have to also see what worked and we have to keep that going," Saraf says.

Looking Forward

The question of whether she should do back to Iraq is an obvious one to ask Saraf. Would she go? Her answer is swift; "In a heartbeat."

However, Saraf says she has no intention of going back while civilians have to live in a contained area—the ring of concrete and barbed wire fences known as the Green Zone.

For Saraf it's a simple choice—she doesn't want to work in an area where other women have to risk their lives to see her. She says she's already had to do it—when she was last in Iraq—and finds it unacceptable to do again.

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