VZCZCXRO5810
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHMOS
DE RUEHKUK #0052/01 0612016
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P R 022016Z MAR 06
FM REO KIRKUK
TO RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD PRIORITY 0510
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0547
INFO RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHKUK/REO KIRKUK 0574

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIRKUK 000052 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BAGHDAD FOR POL, NCT, USAID, ROL COORDINATOR, IRMO 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  3/2/2016 
TAGS: PGOV KWMN KDEM PINR IZ
SUBJECT: NDI SUPPORTS IRAQI WOMEN'S POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT 
 
KIRKUK 00000052  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Michael Oreste, Deputy Political Counselor for 
Provincial Outreach, PRT Kirkuk, DoS. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
Information in this cable should be reviewed under the Privacy 
Act before release. 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY.  A National Democratic Institute (NDI) Program 
Manager for women's issues told IPAO's in late February that 
Iraqi women had not yet obtained an independent voice in 
political parties.  NDI works with women from all Iraqi 
political parties to implement constitutional provisions 
advancing women's rights.  END SUMMARY. 
 
ENCOURAGING WOMEN TO JOIN A PARTY; CODIFYING WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN 
THE CONSTITUTION 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
 
¶2.  (C)  On 21 February, IPAO's met with an NGO program manager 
at PRT Kirkuk to discuss women's issues in Iraq.  The NDI 
Program Manager (AMCIT) said that because Iraqi women did not 
yet have a strong independent voice in Iraq, her group has 
encouraged Iraqi women who want to engage in Iraqi politics to 
first join a political party and then work through parties to 
advance women's rights.  Rather than lobbying political parties, 
NDI persuaded Iraqi women to work directly through the legal 
system to codify women's rights in the Constitution.  She said 
Iraqi women currently were not in a position to change 
attitudes, only laws.  NDI advocates women's rights in Iraq 
through a caucus of political parties, which includes the 
Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Da'wa 
Party, Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), and the Iraqi National Accord 
(INA).  Her group, based in Baghdad, has several branches 
throughout Iraq, including one in Kirkuk.  Female Iraqi 
politicians typically were disconnected from their party 
associates in Iraq's outlying areas, and thus our interlocutor 
had been traveling around Iraq in part to ensure women outside 
Baghdad were informed of her group's activities. 
 
IRAQI POLITICAL PARTIES ON WOMEN'S ISSUES 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (C)  When we queried our source on the role of women in 
Iraq's major political parties, she said that the Da'wa Party's 
female members were the most moderate of the main Islamic 
parties.  The IIP women also were somewhat moderate and appeared 
to be more aligned ideologically with IIP leadership than the 
party's more hardline rank and file.  She said female INA and 
IIP members were advancing faster and assuming more leadership 
posts in their parties, while the INA and Iraqi Communist Party 
were most open to advocate women's rights.  Iraq's two major 
Kurdish parties-the KDP and PUK-were fairly progressive, but our 
contact argued, "they would sell their women for Kurdistan." 
 
¶4.  (C)  When IPAO'S asked our source which portion of 
politically active women in Iraq were religious versus secular, 
she estimated that about 35 percent were Islamic conservatives 
and about 15-25 percent were secular.  SCIRI and Da'wa competed 
for the rest who fell in the middle.  Broadening the scope of 
the discussion, she opined that the majority of SCIRI's party 
members (male and female) were older than 35 years, and that the 
party was having difficulty recruiting new members.  Younger 
moderate Islamic activists typically were joining the Iraqi 
Virtue (Fadilah) party, while the younger radicals were joining 
the Sadrist movement. 
 
bolstering political skills; emerging POLITICAL LADIES 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶5.  (C)  Recent trends suggested that Iraqi women who have 
filled parliament or party leadership positions have assumed 
those posts more often as a result of loyalty than ability. 
When IPAO's asked our source if she perceived Iraqi women were 
becoming more politically active, she suspected they were, but 
that they had difficulty branching out from the party line. 
Furthermore, Islamic parties were not recruiting women. 
(Comment.  Iraqi women who seek involvement in political life 
must align themselves with existing political parties whose 
general principles probably agree with their own aspirations. 
That said, we have observed some women have joined parties 
because of ethnic or family ties.  End Comment.) 
 
¶6.  (C)  NDI's three-step process for helping Iraqi women 
advance in their parties was as follows: first, it helped women 
identify a goal and then learn how to present it to their party 
leaders; second, it encouraged women to support the Constitution 
as the mechanism to codify women's liberties; and third, NDI 
taught women how to achieve their goals.  Our contact boasted of 
 
KIRKUK 00000052  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
her group's efforts to help Iraqi women politicians add several 
(unspecified) women's rights to the Iraqi Constitution draft. 
 
BIOGRAPHIC NOTE 
--------------- 
 
¶7.  (C)  Our source told us that Maysun al-Damluji-an INA 
member-was an emerging female leader, who appeared to be Ayad 
Allawi's spokesperson on women's issues; Safia al-Suhayl, an 
Iraqi National Assembly member and INA member, was another 
rising politician. 
ORESTE