IRAQ:Countless numbers of Iraqi women have been obliged to take on tough new roles and family responsibilities now that their menfolk are missing, writes Ernesto Londono, in Baghdad
SABRIYAH HILAL Abadi began sleeping with a loaded AK-47 by her bed shortly after the war began.
It was a comforting possession for a woman who had lost her home, her husband and, last weekend, a room in a dilapidated building she shared with 27 squatter families, most headed by women.
The mother of four fought mightily to stay in the sparse, two-story building in the Zayouna neighbourhood of Baghdad that once belonged to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, but soldiers forced her out.
Iraq's government is intent on proving it can enforce the law. But the women say that in its determination to rid the party building of its squatters, the government has plunged them deeper into homelessness and may have pushed others toward violence.
Thousands of Iraqi women have in recent years embraced new roles as violence has claimed their men. For Abadi, (43), the turning point came when she accepted the powerful assault rifle from friends concerned about her welfare.
"Before the invasion - never," said Abadi, who oscillated between rage and sadness during three interviews.
Speaking about the army, she waggled her finger. Speaking about her son in college, she looked dismal. Speaking about her old house, she began to weep.
Times have changed, she said. "The women now take on the responsibilities of men and women."
Nearly one million women in Iraq are widows or divorcees, or their husbands are missing, according to Samira al-Mosawi, a Shia member of parliament who heads the women's affairs committee. She said the number, an estimate reached by several government agencies, includes women widowed during the Iran-Iraq war the 1980s.
Mosawi said about 86,000 widows are receiving about $40 (€25.60) a month from the government. Aid organisations and government agencies are unable to help more widows because of a lack of funds and the challenges of doing social work in volatile neighbourhoods.
Before US troops strode into Baghdad in the spring of 2003, Abadi worked as a seamstress to complement the earnings of her husband, who worked at a government factory.
She was optimistic during the days after the invasion. Her impressions of Americans, shaped largely by a news story she saw on television, gave her hope. The story was about an hours-long effort to rescue a cat stuck in a sewage pipe. "If those people are so good to the animals," she said, "I was expecting good things." But the invasion and its aftermath brought more troubles than blessings.
When the family's rent rose from about $20 a month to more than $80, Abadi moved into the building that had housed Saddam Hussein's Baath Party after the structure had been looted and set ablaze.
"During Saddam's time, no one had a right to raise rent on the people," she said. "After the invasion, the rules were gone."
The building had no windows or doors, she said. Inside she found mounds of debris and ashes. "It took me one day just to clear a path so I could sleep," she said. Soon, 27 other Shia families joined her, each occupying a small room. They got the electricity running and the water flowing and began operating like an extended family that included 43 children. Only eight of the families were led by men.
After the invasion, crime became rampant in Baghdad. Then sectarian violence flared. Mass bombings became routine, and kidnappings occurred daily.
Abadi's husband and a friend were taken in July 2005. "They entered an area they weren't supposed to enter," she said, sounding numb. "Armed men took them with their car."
Betoul Jawad (45) lost her husband in July 2006. Men called her and asked her to supply prepaid phone cards as a condition of letting her speak to her husband. She bought the cards, but did not get him on the line. The men stopped calling. "We lost contact with him," she said.
The war in Iraq has displaced about 2.7 million residents, according to the International Organisation for Migration. Hundreds have occupied government buildings, a situation Iraqi officials say is untenable.
The campaign to evict squatters from these buildings was one of the cornerstones of a plan launched last year to improve security. Brig Gen Abdullah Abdul Karim Abdul Sattar, commander of the Iraqi army brigade responsible for Zayouna, said squatters have brought crime to neighbourhoods. He said many rent out their own houses in other parts of the city.
"Every government building should be empty from intruders," he said in an interview in his office, which is decorated with several photographs of him with Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq.
The general said a member of the Mahdi Army, the Shia militia loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, lived in the building in Zayouna. Abadi acknowledged that the Mahdi Army member was a resident and said she often urged him to leave the militia.
Early this month, the residents were given two weeks to abandon the building. Initially, Abadi was defiant. "I will stay inside and have them destroy the building over my head," she said at the time. If they were forced out, she said, her son Muqdam (19), an engineering student, might be forced to drop out of college to help support the family.
"This is how you push young men to become terrorists," she said angrily, as her son stood quietly nearby, clicking on a cellphone, eyes downcast.-