Internation Women's Day: War on Terror, War on Women?

“On March 8, 1908, working women in the needle trade industry took to the streets of New York City demanding better working conditions, higher wages, shorter workdays and the overall improvement of women’s lives in this country.

These women marched through New York City demanding justice for women workers and immigrant workers; they were in fact working immigrant women…” http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Today is the 100th anniversary of this march in New York City; the year 2011 will mark 100 years of International Women’s Day, a day of focus on the status of women worldwide.

I take today to think about the war in Iraq, to help us focus on some of the realities for women in this war.

Let's start the inquiry by looking at a New York Times article, about why young men are joining ‘insurgent groups.’

It isn’t because of religious fervor; in fact, the New York Times article is titled, “Violence Leaves Young Iraqis Doubting Clerics” (NYT, Tuesday, March 4, 2008).

To quote, “Muath, 19, a Sunni, joined an insurgent group in Baghdad last spring to help support his family.”

The article mentions that this young man, who was only 14 when the United States invaded Iraq, is the sole support for his family. He was reduced to selling calling cards on the streets of Baghdad, and joined an insurgent army because that way, he could make enough money to feed his mother and younger siblings.

It’s a very long article, but I wonder who else noticed that the plight of women and children is only between the lines.

The article is not about women and children; as I said, that is only between the lines. I am left with the following questions:

1) What happened to Muath’s father and uncles? Why is a 19 year old man the sole support of his family,

and

2) What will happen to the mother and siblings now that Muath has been arrested for his participation in the insurgent group?

The answers to the questions are not given-- in fact, the questions themselves are missing.

Yet, these questions are important ones if we are to halt the cycle of trauma and violence that contributes to ongoing conflict and war.

Let me give some possible answers, based on what I know about this subject: The mother and the children are left to their own devices.

The chances are high that they will become refugees, starve, become trafficked to other countries for labor and/or sex slavery, or else the next son may take his place in the conflict in order to provide for his mother and siblings.

Unless we begin to think in terms more complex than simply, “The War on Terror,” we are in fact perpetuating terrible circumstances for women and children. Children need adequate food, shelter, and safety in order to grow up with healthy minds, bodies, and souls. Women whose rights of self-determination are curtailed by culture or situation are not able to provide these things for children; neither are men who are conscripted to war, or imprisioned.

By ignoring their plight in favor of a less complicated and more self-serving story, we are not in fact fighting terror; rather, we are prosecuting a war against women and children, punishing the innocent and forcing them to take on violence as a means by which to simply survive.

Or perhaps worse, we are condemning them to lives of slavery and abuse.

There is no war without consequences, and we are all paying.

Let’s start asking the bigger questions, and work hard to understand the answers; let’s begin by looking between the lines, on this International Women’s Day and every day.