Workshop of Establishment Hot Line in Kurdistan –Iraq Theme of Hot Line

Workshop of Establishment Hot Line in Kurdistan –Iraq
Theme of Hot Line
Bayan Salih
I was able to visit Erbil in April in (2009). And was one of the main objectives of the visit is meeting women s organizations, whether in Kurdistan Iraq or in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.
Where short field study conducted through interviews and conversations I ve had with women in different places came from different of socio-economic categories and diverse community in terms of level of professionalism and community cultural events.
the central observation which recorded is that the suffering faced Iraqi women by living within circumstances of parents relations and the system of domination on women are prevalent and under the weight of customs and tribal traditions that are worn out and can not be in harmony with the modern democratic civil society, secular, which is intended to build in Iraq!

The most exciting point and brought to the attention is the bad psychological state that is women live in general. Even women who have the skills, occupations and economic independence to face the constant threat of men to marry another woman, leading to a situation of insecurity and loss of self-confidence among women.

And most of all, and the most bitter and hurtful self is the case that push women to burn themselves under many circumstances, the complexity and diversity and is mostly right the injustice and the looting of their human rights. The number of women who willfully to burn themselves has risen greatly and has become a worrying phenomenon of the whole society, especially in Kurdistan, Iraq. It is indeed distressing is the absence of criminal investigations for the emergence of factors of this phenomenon and the reasons for its expansion and is responsible for the emergence of this phenomenon in society.
After this and that I could note a worsening of violence and discrimination between women and men in Iraq against women.
It is registered during my interview is important to note that the absence of the weakness of governmental and civil institutions that can provide immediate assistance to women in situations of exposure to any emergency and the absence of a law to protect women from violence and supports the struggle to enjoy their legitimate rights and addressing cases of death or the threat of daily violence at home and abroad.

In such meetings raised the idea of hot line, an official in the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, but only two days after I got a response that the Government of the Region is involved on issues are very important and there is no enough time to have to talk about this subject. It was an unpleasant surprise to those who work in this sensitive area, as it was supposed to undertake the entire government to address this important issue and not specific hardware is responsible for the situation of women in the region and human rights only where the case concerns more than half of the community.

Then I visited Women Empowerment Organization in the city of Irbil, I met Ms. Susan Aref. After discussing the status of women in general and the activity of women empowerment, launched in the topic of hotline in Iraq, and I found her has a warm welcome to the idea, which encouraged me to follow the idea further steps forward.
Purpose of the hotline
Provide specialized services for victims of domestic violence by listening to them and provide psychological, social, legal and secure shelter for battered women and girls when needed. Where services are provided "hot line" by receiving telephone calls by a listener team composed of women volunteers and trainees academic field where subjected to several consecutive sessions

Communication with Denmark organizations
When I returned to Denmark, contacts were made within Denmark and raised the idea with the "Cavanaugh" that support the case of women in the Middle East. After discussing the matter in all its aspects and to indicate its importance to the status of women in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, the subject was adopted and approved to support a workshop on the idea of maturity and consideration for the initial start.



The hot line project consists of two phases:
Phase I: organizing a workshop, by the management of the Center for Women s Equality and the support and initiative of the "Jordanian Women s Union" and with the participation of a "lokk" the Danish and the financing of the Organization - Kvinfo - Danish, aimed to identify which of how to manage a hotline in Jordan, and are supervised to train a group of staff from Iraq on the operations of the Department hotline in the light of the experience of Denmark and the success of the Jordanian experience in the management of the hot line. And the women empowerment organization will take part in Iraqi Kurdistan as well as other organizations within the Department hotline Kurdistan.

The second phase: establishment of a hotline in northern Iraq to support women subjected to violence by providing her legal advice, social and psychological by the phone. It is assumed the start-up by extension work to spread legal literacy program on women s rights in Iraqi law.

The implementation of this program to achieve two main goals to confront violence against women, namely:

First Objective: awareness of the largest number of women on laws that affect their daily lives, as women in the Middle East do not know the law or with legal materials or those against it. The presentations focus at sessions on the weaknesses and inequality and discrimination against women in the applicable laws.

The second objective: the definition of women to services provided by organizations that will manage the project and the program of legal and social guidance, psychological and work mechanisms and policies.
This program is at the beginning of any project to move ahead to create a line extension because the local community and authorities must be linked to the organization before starting to provide services, to avoid any possible confrontation of war may be facing the program.
Mechanisms of the program:
1 - the training of lawyers and lawyers in the organization and activists, as well as women candidates for the program to work techniques and lectures on the content of laws that must absorb and understand the mechanisms of exercise and training them.
2 - choose the best among the trainees who will be contributing to the preparation of training materials during training.
3 - preparation of informative material about the program, which will be opened later, a program of legal counseling, social and psychological.
This course will not stop on a permanent basis if requested by any of the participating organizations or any of the institutions the implementation of these courses.
1 - Training of staff, who will work in the program an initial theoretical training, and lasts from four to five days.
2 - staff required to work in the program, social workers and specialists of psychology and the lawyers.
3 - Training of the main staff of committee and can be members of the administrative board and the Society activists. This training is designed to link in between volunteering and technical work in the follow-up to counter violence against women.
4 - practical training specialists for the things mentioned in item 2 for a month in the programs of the Federation of Jordanian women.
5 - Working in the program starts two months after the beginning of the implementation of the project, as well as completion of the training that we talked about in the previous points, so that the specialists apply what they have learned .
6 - A visit by the trainers in Amman to accompany the specialists at work and after two months of starting work, so that there are a number of reviews are discussed in the cases presented to the program.
7 - as a result of a visit carried out by trained specialists and subject specialists from Oman to the new course and this is a session in response to developments facing the Iraqi specialists and lawyers at work and focus on problems that arise when and after the application, and is this type of training is necessary from time to time because Several problems arise in the work and you need to develop plans to solve them.

NOTE
Has been completed the first phase of the project, a workshop for discussion and planning of construction of a hotline in Iraq s Kurdistan / in Jordan on 24.10.2009 until 27.10.2009 successfully.
Presence of members of the Center for the equality of women and the Organization of Luke and the Organization of the Danish Jordanian Women s Union and the Organization of the women empowerment from Iraq. Is likely to start the second part of the project in the month of April (2010), and we will publish all the developments of the project later.


Organizations participating in the project:
Center for women s equality - the responsible and coordinated work of the project
http://www.c-we.org
Lokk Danish organization - the Organization of participation in the project
http://www.lokk.dk/
The Jordanian Women s Union - Organization of participation in the project
http://www.jordanianwomenunion.org
Women Empowerment Organization - Organization of participation in the project
http://www.weoiraq.com

Organization - Kvinfo - Danish - Supporting Organization of the project
http://www.kvinfo.dk

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