Heartland Alliance is a nonprofit organization aim at advocating for human rights and responding to the human needs of endangered populations—particularly the poor, the isolated, and the displaced—by providing comprehensive services and promoting permanent solutions leading to a more just global society. It is based in Chicago but works both domestically and internationally. One of its key area is sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) because it is one of the greatest threats to a woman’s life and health and affects women throughout the world. One of its international programs, gender-based violence prevention in Iraq, interested me because of my nationality. Females in Iraq grow up in an environment where they face a significant amount of cultural and institutional violence and discrimination. One in five married Iraqi women has been a victim of physical domestic violence, while one in three has been subject to emotional violence. The practice of honor killings persists to this day for women who are perceived to have dishonored their families by acting outside their cultural gender norms (e.g., seeking a divorce, alleged or committed adultery, etc). Iraqi criminal laws overlook male violence while punishing women who deviate from cultural norms, and through laws that are either discriminatory or are harmful to women in their practice. Violence, verbal abuse, and lack of basic needs, such as food, clothing, and medical care, are inflicted upon female detainees. Conditions in the detention centers are not monitored and there is no regular trial observation and monitoring of implementation of discriminatory laws and legal procedures toward women in either the criminal justice or family court system.
Heartland Alliance work with Iraqi NGOs to offer gender-sensitive, direct legal, social intervention and medical services to victims of violence. The conditions of female detainees are also being monitored while laws and policies that will help improve protection for gender-based violence victims. A media campaign to increase awareness of this growing issue on gender-based violence is also underway.
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