Committee on the Woman, Family and Childhood in the Iraqi Parliament (Observation and Assessment)

Abstract

When the Iraqi parliament was formed after 2003, women had their share in this importance, as they were present always in the conducts of the newborn political process in Iraq due to the political democratization. Soon after the first legislative elections occurred in 2005, lights were shed on naming and forming committees, one of which was a committee on the woman, family, and child, which was renamed afterward into committee on the woman, family, and childhood. By observing the work of this committee in two legislative sessions, this research is aimed at introducing a pioneering study in this field for its importance and the rarity of similar studies that tackled it directly. The paper will recognize the committee’s role and response to issues within its range of responsibilities, especially women’s issues, and answers two significant questions: is the committee activated or deactivated? And is it active or inactive? Our paper tries to confirm the authenticity of its presumption which is “Committee on Woman, Family, and Childhood is considered inactive because it is deactivated due to the number of draft laws that were suggested through the two parliamentary sessions and its capability of passing some of them”. Our qualitative and quantitative approaches relied on using documents analysis tool such as parliament basic system, internal committee regulations and parliament sessions’ proceedings that discussed draft laws suggested by the committee, etc. We also made direct interviews with members of the committee in the previous and the current sessions of parliament. But there lie a lot of difficulties in the face of these plans; for example, chairman of the committee in second legislative sessions canceled an appointment with the researchers, after we went to meet her on time in that appointment.