“Building a Correct Democratic Civil Society in New Democratic Iraq”

I would like to affix the undeniable truth of woman as a real part in any democratic transformation ; I believe NO democracy will succeed in the world without involving woman in the political process in all its radical forms; it will definitely fail and paralyze without having woman as a vital partner; I can say " One hand can not clap", so it seems that any democratic transformation in the world needs woman to stand side by side with man, and definitely it will NOT succeed unless there is the real participation of woman in all levels of life particularly the political one.

I believe, we have to embody the principles of an open society through comprehensive democratic revolution, hence we need to involve the European Union to play great role through serving as a model and motive force for the rule of law on an international scale. To build a successful and fruitful democracy, we have to establish the true foundation of sound civil society that should NOT be shaken easily as a leave before strong storm; for this reason, I do believe that democracy is unstable if the democratic system lacks a substance called civil society.

We have to make full use of the European examples in democracy, for instance, we have to follow up the Czech experience after the democratic transformation the society of Republic of Czech has witnessed in all levels of life particularly in involving woman as real partner in the political process in order to succeed the vital projects of democracy that the Middle East urgently needs and particularly the Iraqi society does need at the present time.

So to begin with these programs, we have to promote the advancement of women s human rights, gender equality and empowerment as an integral part of the process of democratization through international trainings and campaign projects.

Through international trainings and campaign projects, the Network Women s Program supports the development of sustainable women s NGOs that respond to the multi-faced problem of violence against women, one of the key social mechanisms for maintaining women s inequality.

Human rights instruments and mechanisms provide a powerful tool for articulating and advancing gender issues and incorporating them into law and practice. Within the framework of the global movement for women s human rights, the Network Women s Program (NWP) supports the development of women’s human rights leaders and advocates at local, national, regional, and international levels. It also supports the inclusion of young women to be involved in educational and training opportunities to develop their decision-making and problem solving skills, creating tomorrow’s leaders.

On the other main side, we have to strengthen and encourage the NGOs in the Middle East to play a vital role in the civil society. In Iraq, for example, we may observe the following items that have great and obvious effect on civil society in general and woman in particular, they may activate the principles of democracy and accelerate it otherwise the negative aspects might be spread instead and paralyze the democratic ideas that we urgently wish to achieve.

These are as follows:

1- Rule of Law

Any efficient legal democratic state ensures the rule of law for everyone – both the citizens and institutions – as well as the enforceability of law. Any democratic ruling has to rely on the rule of law. In other words, the state has to guarantee that law is applied to every member of society whether man or woman on an equal basis and at the same time the state has to be subject to law and abide by it. This is something the new democratic civil society aims to achieve.
The following are examples of what the activities that supposed to be focused on:

• Support reforms aiming to establish democratic institutes.
• Eliminate discrimination among genders of women and men, ethnicity and minority and its signs.
• Introduce mechanisms for monitoring the way the country is governed and law and order are upheld,
• Promote measures to abolish corruption,
• Introduce new methods into the training programs at law schools,
• Ensure that everybody has access to justice,
• Build a platform for reforms in law and order and introduce new principles into the work of police.


2- Corruption

Corruption and fighting it has become one of the hot issues of today that the new democratic civil society in Iraq has to pay much attention to, and since 2004, we have observed the administrative corruption and recommended the following:

• Analyzing corruption in different areas of the public sector,
• Proposing legislation measures to reduce the opportunities for corruption, adopting such measures, and ensuring they are implemented effectively,
• Introducing mechanisms to help abolish corruption, especially measures that allow the public monitoring of how public funds are used and how tenders are conducted,
• Bringing the cases of corruption to the public through the media


3- Legal Education

We recommend that there must be a legal education to raise the level of knowledge and understanding among the civil society everywhere in Iraq.
The following are the areas that the new democratic civil society has to be provided with a legal clinic based at law schools:

• Asylum and refugee issues,
• Rights of mental disabled people,
• Rights of children,
• Street law,
• Public interest law
• Access to Justice

4- Woman s Rights

• To give woman an equal role in the new democratic civil society.
• To compensate her of what she has suffered through the dark decades of dictatorship of the former regime.
• To involve her in the political process and give her the equal share in the governmental institutions.
• To represent her in all diplomatic circles.
• To give her a complete freedom of thought and opinion.

In order to be on the safe side, we have to focus on more two important areas besides woman issues, these are: judicial reform and creating access to justice. Both areas are absolutely crucial to the existence of a democratic state, and they remain issues with insufficient application of principles of a rule of law.

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