INTERVIEW WITH EMAN AHMED KHAMMAS

Eman is a journalist with Occupation Watch, a translator, and advised the Code Pink Delegation on Iraqi women's issues during January 24 �February 4, 2004.

Eman: I have two daughters and they are the most precious things on this earth to me. My 18 year old is in her first year of college in English Literature and my 17 year old, is in high school. My oldest daughter will be a novelist when she finishes her degree. My youngest daughter is still deciding what career she will follow.

My husband and I have given our girls psychological strength and they are very independent minded. We have offered them as many choices as we can about who and what they'll be as adults. This is a vulnerable position in current Iraq. It is risky to be independent minded and it will remain risky as long as we have the authority and power vacuum we now have.

This occupation it making it also physically risky for women to go outside their homes �if they are lucky enough to still have home. Many families have not been able to keep up with inflation �and unemployment is above 60 percent �and lose their homes when the rents become too high. Many women no longer drive, visit friends and family as they did before, and they seldom go shopping anymore. The streets are dangerous: theft, attack, kidnappings are common occurrences.

This is new in Iraq. Iraqi women are used to many freedoms in this country, the achievement of years of struggle for the past century. Now decision number 137 passed by the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) -- an interim body put in place since the occupation �is threatening to replace Iraqi civil and family law with Sharia law. Decision 137 denies earlier freedoms and laws about marriage, divorce, custody of children, heritage Iraqis are very worried and I am very concerned for the future of my children. Passing this law would be a big step backward for Iraqi women, men, and families.

I come from a large family and our extended family is very large and very mixed, some of us are religious and some of us are not; sometimes this is awkward. My husband and I, and our girls, are not religious. If my girls want to follow a religious path, that is up to them. At this time neither of them wears the hijabone tried it for a week and has not tried it sincethey are secular.

When my oldest brother was killed in the war with Iran in the early 1980s I became the oldest child of my 6 brothers and 3 sisters. I grew strong and determined.

I finished my MA in English Literature and began working on a women� magazine; it was there that I met my husband. Perhaps the fact that he worked as an editor on a women� magazine tells you that he is not really a traditional Iraqi manmaybe in some things he isbut he thought about the issues that women face in this world and that is why he, too, was working on this magazine. Now he has his PhD and teaches film at University of Baghdad. Let me insert here that, in Iraq, education is free to anyone who has the capability. It� true that Saddam Hussein discriminated against non-Ba�thists in the universities �especially if a student talked about subversive political topics �but Iraqi has one of the highest per capita rates for PhDs in the world and all studies are free.

About my marriage: I do not pretend that it was always easy but in the end my husband and I work out our issues and our marriage is strong. He respects my views and I respect his. Our daughters see this and learn from this. Sometimes I worry about where my daughters might find partners with this heritage but I wouldn� change a thing about them. Another worry for all women in Iraq is that so many Iraqi men have been killed in the wars that Saddam Hussein brought upon us. Many smart, well-educated, loving women in our country will not marry and have families because of the lack of men. It is a tragedy that will affect my country for a long time to come.

In the 1980s and 1990s men were in the army and women were in the workforce. Since this war and subsequent occupation the unemployment rate is so high, security is a big issue, and jobs tend to go to men. Company managers say they want to hire men �even though they believe women make better employees as they�e more committed to their work �because women must leave the office earlier in order to arrive home safely. Generally salaries are the same for both men and women �if salary discrimination exists it tends to favor women.

Under Saddam Hussein I had a good job with the General Federation of Iraqi Women. Even though it was a faade for the Ba-athist Party it was a good place for women to work and it did many good things for Iraqi women.