Securing Women Rights in Kurdistan Constitution

Women Empowerment Organization in cooperation with Canada Human Rights Fund for Iraq launched a full-scale campaign to raise the constitutional awareness of the public and win the support of the people to amend or modify those clauses and articles in the Kurdistan constitution which violate against women rights and do not conform to the international standards. Thus, WEO held 18 workshops in the cities of Erbil, Duhok and Suleimny concerning women rights in Kurdistan constitution in March 2007. The workshops were attended by 621 participants (363 women and 258 men).
After the holding 18 workshops all over Kurdistan, WEO held a seminar in March 19, 2007 in (ChwarChra Hotel) in Erbil city. The seminar was aiming at discussing the suggestions and recommendations concluded in the workshops conducted all over Kurdistan. After a heated debate over the controversial articles relevant to women rights and suggestions resulted in the workshops, the seminar came up with a handful of recommendations which finally submitted to the Kurdistan parliament to be considered before the final draft of the constitution is endorsed.  

These activities all constitute the first phase of the project which aimed at:
-Citizens particularly women are aware of the impact of the current draft on their future rights and liberties.
- Mobilizing public opinion and women groups to act for amending constitutional articles to be more consistent with human rights and women rights agreements
-Feeding the constitutional drafting process with inputs/ recommendation coming from the grassroots and educational facilities.