The history of women and gender
in the Republic of Iraq

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The social history in general of the Republic of Iraq

Iraqi women hurt most by sanctions

By Barbara Nimri Aziz, Third World Network, 5 July 1998. Under the UN sanctions, casualties include not only Iraq's self-sufficiency and its modern, secular society, with its advanced medical and educational systems, but also the progressive lives of eight million Iraqi women, who find themselves forced into social contracts which they thought ended a century ago.

It's No Life Now, Baghdad Women Say

By Stephen Kinzer, New York Times, [circa 28 December 1998]. The sanctions have changed many things for women: there is no work, so men do not get married; women can barely afford food or medicine. Millions of Iraqi women work in public jobs with little income, and avoid starvation largely because of monthly food rations supplied by the UN and paid for with oil sales.

The changing face of Iraqi marriage

By Caroline Hawley in Baghdad, BBC, 6 November 2001. Difficult economic conditions as a result of a decade of international sanctions have forced a change in marriage patterns. There are now said to be one million women over the age of 35 who are not married.