Women’s Stories: Female Agency and Transitional Justice in Iraq

sarah jacobs

The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) commitment to recognizing the dignity of individuals “ensur[es] that women and marginalized groups play an effective role in the pursuit of a just society.”[1] The ICTJ attempts to fulfill this through “truth seeking,” finding and recording victims’ stories to document their experiences and therefore work towards a justice-oriented solution.[2] I explore this concept with the question: how do women’s stories serve as a form of testimony in the context of transitional justice?

To answer this question, I examine the role of women’s voices during Iraq’s period of transition circa 2003 to argue that a comprehensive justice must include the documentation and amplification of women's voices. The historical context of women’s rights in under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime is foundational to this study as actors that facilitated transition claimed to value the inclusion of women’s voices in the formation of government, yet in reality, ignored many women’s rights groups and testimonies.[3] Iraqi women have a century long history of active and successful campaigns for their rights.[4] However, circumstances of wartime, poverty, and political upheaval had adverse impacts upon the socio-cultural climate that was once safeguarded for women. These ‘adverse impacts’ are humanized through stories. Stories of women couple with transitional justice when they are recorded and identified as testimony. This paper will explore the shapes and forms testimony can embody as well as how testimony can inform the major areas of society which require reform. Specifically, the majority of testimonials from this analysis have focused around the following three areas: mistrust of government, gender violence, and the patriarchal structure of society. Though my analysis is focused on Iraqi women post-Saddam Hussein, I nevertheless extend my general argument to assert that women’s testimonials must play an active role in all transitional periods in order for adequate justice to be attained.

Literature Review

There is legal precedent for the importance of amplifying women’s testimony in an effective transitional justice process. Olivia St. Clair posits that during periods of transition, new governments often set out with the goal to include women’s voices in the constitution creation process, yet in practice, women are often left out of conversations about their own rights. Specifically, during Iraq’s transition through US occupation, St. Clair argues “U.S. constitution-makers ignored Iraqi women’s groups and their representatives” at the time of formation, and often traded away women’s rights for political gains.[5] The U.S. occupation indeed sold away women’s rights in exchange for political support for the stable, democratic government from the Shi’a clerics majority, the same tactic Saddam Hussein used in the 1990s to appease Islamist fundamentalist groups.[6] Under both the U.S. occupation and the Ba’athists, the progress that women’s rights groups had made in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in the form of Personal Status Laws (PSL), was stunted and even reversed.[7] Throughout the occupation, women’s rights groups and NGOs were eager to protest, participate, and raise their voices.[8] However, generally speaking, instability“silences women and threatens their ability to participate in society,” and further threatens their personal safety if they attempt to speak out.[9]

St. Clair asserts that transitional government members need to do more than just listen to women’s stories. They need to amplify women’s stories to understand their priorities and encourage them to participate in democracy.[10] The first step in amplifying women’s voices is recording their stories so that they may serve as documented testimony and impact the considerations of a new government.

St. Clair engages with Valentine M. Moghadam’s works by supporting the claim that women were worse off under the U.S. occupation than the Ba’ath regime. Moghadam’s work “Peacebuilding and Reconstruction with Women” recounts the history of Iraqi women’s rights groups, their gains and losses, and the use of women as “pawns during conflicts or in post-conflict agreements.”[11] She continues the conversation by emphasizing women’s experiences of inequality as a foundational way to reconstruct social and gender relations.[12] Women “have a stake in reconstruction that is woman-friendly,” therefore demonstrating the need for women’s testimonies to be amplified during transition.[13] Moghadam believes in women’s testimony because one cannot separate women’s rights from human rights: “there cannot be meaningful reconciliation without gender justice.”[14] She makes the broad claim that in order to achieve general stability and security for a transitioning nation, women’s rights and concerns must be at the forefront of social, political, economic, and cultural resource allocation.[15]

Moghadam uses a feminist lens to describe the patriarchal violence and heightened insecurity during times of instability during the U.S. occupation. This concept is explored further in Fionnuala Ní Aoláin’s analysis of the patriarchy is upheld as international concepts of transitional justice acculturate. Insofar as the structural exclusion of women exists in peacetime, it is only exacerbated during methods of transition that incorporate a Western patriarchal approach: there is a “lack of naming” of harms against women, and on the “hierarchy of harms,” gender violence ranks low.[16] Methods for amplifying women’s experiences are disregarded in the framework of human rights.[17]

Aoláin argues that “women have an expansive notion of what and where transformation is required.”[18] Their understandings are based on lived experiences which are often ignored. However, it is these understandings that should be informing the policy changes of a transitional government, especially regarding the institutional gender transformations needed in order for women to live in safety. Aoláin critiques transitional justice processes as narrow minded- failing to encourage broad social-structural change, and inaccurately measuring the impact of reforms.[19] It is imperative that transitional justice representatives directly converse with Iraqi women about the difference between goals and tangible outcomes. Primary source interviews are the first method of testimony that will be analyzed, and from these, special attention is drawn to the themes of distrust of legal systems, gender violence, and patriarchal systems.

The second form of testimony under analysis is photography. Pablo Hernández Hernández writes about the importance of visual testimony in the discussion of justice; photography can be used as evidence in legal settings as well as for historiography records.[20] Applying his conceptual perspectives to the context of Latin American countries post-guerilla warfare of the twentieth century, Hernández Hernández connects photography, testimony, and transitional justice:

“…Taking the picture, disassembling, assembling and reassembling it, signing it and creating an adequation between what is shown, what is lived and what is understood, is an act, an action which, in certain social and cultural planes… can produce discourses and representations alternative to the law. This action is part of a social struggle, a social dispute for the word and the image which are the foundations of law and right, and they are another force for insisting, from the speakable and the imaginable, on the impossible experience of justice.”[21]

His words summarize the unique function of a photograph to display experiences outside of legal jargon that then contribute to the restorative justice process in the social sphere. This is especially relevant because transitional justice believes in relying on more methods than just a judiciary system; it aims to humanize victims, preserve their stories, and rebuild trust within communities. The photograph collection I examine is taken by Iraqis themselves, crediting their experiences with even more authenticity as they are formed closer to the source of truth.  Although photography is a far from perfect source as we cannot assume the intentions of the photographer, photographical analysis is still useful to acknowledging the autonomy of documentation one holds with a camera.

Internet blogs, the final form of testimony I analyze, are especially compelling in relation to Middle Eastern women. Most female Middle Eastern bloggers write in English, are highly educated, and many have been threatened for their writing.[22] Technology allows these educated women to participate in the blog community to express their views and engage in dialogue while consciously disseminating their stories in an accessible way.[23] Because they are live accounts of day to day life from an inside perspective, they serve as a counter narrative to the lens projected by Western media.[24] The authors are able to define their identity themselves as women, Arab citizens, and/or Muslims. This self-expression of identity for a public audience serves as testimony. Identity exploration humanizes Middle Eastern citizens in conflict zones as everyday people with dreams, thoughts, humor, and hardships.

Most importantly, blogs create space that does not otherwise exist for women in their lives. In her analysis of the extraordinary explosion of female bloggers in Iran, Fereshteh Nouraie-Simone states, “lack of privacy in public space and constant surveillance to ensure correct moral behavior foster an atmosphere of fear and paranoia, reinforcing the need to create separate public and private existences.”[25] Blogs provide a digital public space with more freedom and security than physical public spaces, allowing young women to share their stories with autonomy and anonymity. These intimate releases of experiences from uncensored Iraqi women serve as the transformative space in which testimony can thrive. Before we implement transitional justice practices, and before we amplify women’s voices to inform such practices, we must allow women the sovereignty to own their voice.

Interview Analysis

Testimonies contains the stories of ten Iraqi civilians selected out of 7,000 testimonials known as the Iraqi History Project. The International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University Law created this project in 2005 to document Iraqi testimonials of the former regime’s human rights violations and create a database of stories available to the Iraqi people and the world.[26] Their greater aim was to prove the need for transitional justice practices and serve as a medium for the public to begin to reconcile with past atrocities.[27] The American team from DePaul Law embodied a unique perspective as outsiders free from political ties, only recording testimonials from victims. The interviews ensured their subjects’ comfort and were conducted in the subjects’ native languages in familiar places. Similarly, victims were matched with interviewees of shared identity groups (women interviewed by women, Kurds by other Kurds, etc.).[28] By utilizing local NGOs and social networks, the team was able to expand to ensure a diverse volunteer group so that anyone who wanted to share their story could do so in a comfortable atmosphere.

As stated above, Testimonies is a published work that contains only ten selected interviews, reading like stories with no interrupting questions. They are translated into English and edited for a Western audience. I read knowing that the stories were most likely selected because of their shock value, their moral reasoning, and/or inspiring messages. In my analysis, I will focus on the major themes that appeared in the women’s testimonials and how male testimony engaged with women’s issues. The men have an interesting perspective as they describe what happens to the women around them, often in more detail than in women’s recounts. The men describe everything from highly sexualized slurs, rape, and genital torture to psychological and familial issues directly related to women. The effects are long-lasting dehumanization that intentionally destroys family units. 

A common family related thread was that the wives were simply unaware of their husbands’ participation in politics, particularly with the Islamic Dawa Party and the Kurdish Peshmurga.[29] There was a certain disbelief that the horrors they had heard about could be happening to their families. Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, anyone who worked outside of the Ba’ath party was subject to arrest. Often, despite any lack of involvement, the state connected women to the political party of their husbands, sons, or fathers. Women with no political connections often pleaded with guards, with one on record having said “I have no control over my husband. He won’t even listen to what I say,” using their secondary role in the home as a source of innocence.[30] In the end, even the most politically sheltered women were often subject to brutal torture because of familial connections to political prisoners.

The women in prisons often vouched for one another and did their best to help each other. In one poignant example, a female Arab doctor assured a pregnant Kurdish woman’s health and safety by requesting that the guards move her to a proper maternity ward and release her chained hands.[31] This doctor even scolded officers, saying, “you shouldn’t beat people like that” at the sight of the pregnant woman’s condition.[32] Women and children were often placed together in the same areas of prisons. The account under the name Banaz shows the desperation of any mother to reunite with any child after families had been separated: “We were all looking for our children, feeling around for them like animals, touching their hair and bodies. All the women grabbed onto the children they touched.”[33] The women also put their children’s health first, working together to divide any food equally amongst the children.[34] The kindness extended beyond the women and their families. In another testimony, a civilian woman hid two injured men that had crawled out of a mass grave, giving them shelter, medical care, and food for the night.[35] The cultural status of women played a central role in how female prisoners were treated. Every account by a female prisoner and one male described the systematic rapes of women. The women were called sluts, whores, bitches, pigs, and blamed for their punishment because of their accused affiliations. If the women were perceived to be exceptionally beautiful, they were targeted by the torturers: “She’s a great find!” they proclaimed as they observed their prey.[36] One man told an officer that his wife had diseases so that they would not rape her after discovering her beauty and proclaiming, “I’m going to punish that shit!”[37] Widad, a victim of systematic rape by multiple officers, had the courage to confront an officer to question their honor as sons and husbands of women. One replied, “our sisters and wives are not like you, you’re a slut and a whore!”[38] This dehumanization allowed the officers to excuse their actions. They convinced themselves that they were raping animals, not women.

Women’s stories also show rape and torture interfere with a woman’s domestic life. The testimony given by a former torturer named Jasim describes how his experience caused him to abuse his wife by beating her often, eventually divorcing her and losing relationships with his children as well.[39] The Kurdish woman Banaz attempted to return home after her imprisonment, but was rejected by her family because she “dishonored them in prison,” failed to upkeep her Kurdish tradition by not wearing black clothes while mourning her husband, and accused her of collaborating with the regime.[40] Banaz had nowhere to go with her eldest children after losing her eight month old baby. She faced rape, brutal torture and beatings for six months in prison. Her surviving children were taken in by family members, but Banaz continued to be rejected and was separated from her children permanently. Banaz’s family member said, “They’re not her children…If she returns, I’ll kill her.”[41] She suffered from mental illness following these traumatic events, left alone to think about the children she had lost.[42] It is stories like Banaz’s and Jasim’s wife’s that illuminate how gender norms in domestic life, culture, and religion changes the way torture effects women differently than men.         

A second form of interview that I analyzed was an ethnographic study of Iraqis conducted by the International Center for Transitional Justice during the summer of 2003. The study consisted of seventeen focus groups of key informants and are clustered by ethnicity, social status, or victims’ affiliation, and then further subdivided by gender,age, and hometown. The participants in the groups were interviewed together and are identified anonymously with a designated number (for example, “Lady 1,” “Woman 5,” or simply “3”). The groups I chose to focus on was a mix of Sunni women of various ages and who were students at the University of Mosul, Shi’ite women ages 16-30, and female lawyers. Unlike Testimonies that reads as individual stories, these interviews contain the questions and comments of interviewers, translators, and interviewees. The participants statements have not been edited or interpreted in any way besides translation.[43]

St. Claire and Moghadam’s shared concern that women’s voices are subdued in times of transition is demonstrated in each of the selected interviews. The women seem surprised, humbled, and curious as to why they are being interviewed, even asking “to what extent is it helpful?” regarding their answers.[44] They claim, “women are not listened to,” and mostly blame the government authorities, both Ba’athist and U.S. occupational forces, for this: “Our ex-government who makes decisions never ever took our opinions. Do you think our opinions have effect on another governments and on our own government?”[45] The researcher attempts to ease the women’s woes, claiming that groups such as Human Rights Watch changed their approach in Iraq after speaking with women, and that ICTJ wants their input to “deliver them to the decision makers.”[46] One Shi’ite woman asked the investigator to put himself in her shoes, to which he replied, “I did not undergo these experiences…We have come to hear from you.”[47] The woman’s reply encompasses the worry that many women expressed: “It is possible that our experience is not strong enough.”[48]

These doubts and concerns testify to the importance of valuing women’s voices in the public sector. These women believe the opposite of what scholars believe to be true: that experiences alone are testimonial evidence to inform the policies of the future. These women have grown up in a time with limited freedom of speech and expression, as well as patriarchal influences upon their social roles- thinking their voices do not matter because “the decision is issued by the man.”[49] These mindsets, so deeply engraved in Iraq’s culture, support Aoláin’s argument that transitional justice should better address comprehensive socio-cultural changes that need to be made while rebuilding the structure of a historically patriarchal society.

A second common thread throughout the interviews is mistrust of the judicial system. The women’s understanding of the problems within the judicial system underscores the value of women’s input in transitional justice procedures.[50] When asked if they trust Iraqi lawyers, the Sunni women laughed, one replying, “they are all thieves.”[51] The female lawyers mentioned corruption of judges, that the law only applies to the poor or weak, and that Iraqi judges and lawyers should learn from international judicial guidance to better their own system.[52] The Shi’ite females had similar views, saying “there is no trust.”[53] These findings can inform future decisions on how to move forward with legal proceedings as well as reform the judicial system. Without trust in the law, there can be no justice.

The women responded to questions about testimony, reparations, lustration, and other forms of “justice.”. Most of the women agreed that records of past injustices should be kept in order to maintain awareness and understanding of their struggles and insights.[54] Some of the women’s suggestions include international trials, compensation for victims, correcting reparation levels for martyrs and their families, ridding the government of all Ba’ath members, and holding the government accountable for follow-through of renewed promises.[55] Evidently, these women have a plentitude of recommendations for achieving justice, rebuilding trust, and creating a society that is safe and healthy, supporting Aoláin’s point that women know more than most what needs to be done in order for society to be safe and inclusive for their gender. Outside of transitional justice efforts, they simply are not asked or are ignored when offering their concerns. To Moghadam’s argument that there can be no human rights without the inclusion of women in every aspect, the women acknowledge their unique suffering due to their gender: “Because we are women, women’s simplest rights were lost.”[56] Their interviews serve as testimonies to the real challenges faced by the Iraqi nuclear family.

Photography Analysis

Next, I will analyze a selection of seven photographs from the “Photographs by Iraqi civilians” collection in the Rubenstein archives. This collection comes from a number of Iraqis in Baghdad and Fallujah who were armed with disposable cameras during 2003-2004. The only piece of information we know about the photographers that collectively captured over four hundred images is that they are Iraqi citizens.[57] By choosing the subjects, angles, and artistic vision of the photographs, these Iraqis created a discursive framing of regime change and American occupation around their individual perceptions of the events.. The aim of the project was to glimpse into everyday life experiences of ordinary civilians following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and to offer “a point of view unavailable to the foreign press.”[58] Much like other testimonials, these photographs humanize the subjects by exhibiting their relationships, struggles, daily activities, and feelings.

The collection of twenty-three prints by nine photographers displayed in a travelling exhibition in 2004 paint a bleak picture: men digging graves, children in dire need of medical care, banners protesting the occupation, funeral processions, and bomb craters filled with water and trash. However, within the desolate scenes emerge hopeful stories of real people who continue to live their lives despite all this. I chose to focus on seven photographs that captured women in this intimate context (see Appendix A for photographs and captions). I originally observed the photographs through Hernández Hernández’s lens of visual testimony; the stories that the images confer open a window to see the everyday experiences that are the foundation of successful transitional justice procedures. I saw women holding their children tight, teaching in schools, working in hospitals, and walking down empty streets wearing solid black burkas. I understood their lived experiences to be testimony to a new normal wrought by the confusion of the post-regime military occupation. Life carries on with the same feelings of faith, desire, and love.

However, reading the captions changed my point of view. For example, upon first observing image twenty-one, I saw a woman holding her son amidst a solid gray background.[59] The boy appears older than a toddler, perhaps five or six years old, yet he is still held in his mother’s arms like a younger child. He has a gash on the inner side of his right knee. The boy smiles for the camera, posing with a grin that looks directly at the camera. The mother struggles to hold him, concerned but still gazing at the camera. They appear in a concrete corridor, a door open behind them. Water stains the concrete floor beneath them, most likely residue of mopping the tile inside. Then, the caption: “Abd-Allah, an Iraqi child, who is disabled and very sick,” reassembled the image and the story. Is the child actually okay, despite his delightful smile? Was he born disabled or does he have a condition caused by the war? Is his knee injury caused naturally by his illness, simply a scrape from playing on the concrete, or was it induced by other, more violent methods? Does he have access to proper medicine and treatment? Is he living a life that is restricted by his illness? We do not know if his illness has been exacerbated by the U.S. sanctions of medical supplies. Does he go to school like the boys in photograph twelve, and if so, is his classroom and teacher properly equipped to support his needs?[60] Unlike the interviews, we cannot determine the implications for the future conversation about achieving justice and what the victims wish from a future government; we can only deduce from the message conveyed in a snapshot of their present.

I was struck in a similar manner by a second image of a mother holding her son. Photograph ten shows a young woman holding a small child in a jumpsuit, both smiling as she gazes up at him. In front of a blue ceramic tile background with a tree’s leaves peaking in from above, the scene reads pleasantly, with the reflection of the flash telling us it is night. The caption reveals that Alaa Kamel, the mother of young Hammodi, is attempting to calm him down after he awoke frightened by the sound of a bomb.[61] This photograph now speaks to the interruption of security for Iraqis who once knew peace. It demonstrates the psychological trauma that affects young children as well as the emotional energy it drains from parents to support themselves and their families in a time of anxiety. This picture is a snapshot of a common experience, supported by one woman’s tesimony from the ICTJ interviews about former security: “The Iraqi people… learned to be safe. Since the beginning of the nineties and until the war, they banned fire shootings. We have six children since the year ninety, and they become surprised from the fire shooting, and they do not know what these noises are.”[62] Multiple women across testimonial mediums said that their children were fearful during the time of the U.S. occupation. Because security can apply to the physical, mental, emotional, and social capacities, the photographs open up a mode of understanding the role of women’s testimony in transitional justice.

This phenomenon can apply to the entire set of photographs as we continue to question them as testimonials. In each case, an Iraqi citizen felt that these were important enough stories to document with a camera. The viewer should seize the opportunity to hear and amplify the voices from the photograph, and search to answer questions that the caption information fails to provide for us: in the hospital, are the women trained doctors in need of lifesaving medical equipment?[63] Does the female art student feel hopeful about her future employment opportunities as an artist in Iraq?[64] What is the teacher struggling with as she attempts to maintain order in the classroom amidst outside chaos?[65] These are the people whose stories provide evidence for the atrocities committed under authoritarian regimes, while at the same time demonstrating the bravery of normal life activities for women and their children.

Blog Analysis

Finally, I examine women’s testimony through blogs. The blog “Riverbend” documents a young woman’s story from 2003 to 2004, compiled into a book entitled Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq.[66] Because this particular blog has become so popular and has already been analyzed for content (see “Baghdad Blogs and Gender Sites”), I will focus on how the themes and ideas relate to the discussion of testimony and transitional justice. For one, River writes as a twenty-four-year-old computer programmer whose Sunni Islam informs her feminism. As she allows the reader into her world, she simultaneously defines her identity, creates the space in which she can openly discuss the issues she faces and thinks about, and challenges the Western lens by supporting her religion as a way of life. Her blog creates an open criticism of the U.S. occupation. She notes the loss of rights for women specifically under the occupation, as St. Clair and Moghadam both recognized: she was fired from her job because men refused to interact with her, she could no longer leave the house wearing pants due to the policing of extremist women’s groups, and, in response to the Western occupation, women were targets for heightened policing, fought over locally and politically, and lost rights that usually secured their freedom, such as divorce and inheriting land.[67]

River uses her computer as a witness. She records her testimony without being asked or interviewed. River defends her religion despite the growing extremism, embracing her identity as a Muslim woman, and relying on her faith to keep hope alive for the return of her rights.River is unafraid to call out the institutions that played a role in the destruction of security and rights. This is a transitional justice method of holding institutions accountable for their actions, the first step needed for eventual confidence restoration.[68] River shares her opinions on the actions that will lead to justice, including respect for the rule of law, reparations for victims, and rebuilding of the society that once functioned inclusively and securely for her and other women. River’s testimony allows Western audiences, as well as the rest of the online world, to better understand an authentic and personal impact of war, occupation, and attempted reconciliation. The basic act of speaking her truth to the world completes the act of truth-seeking for us. River names the harms to identify specific problems that transitional justice actors can use as evidence for recommendations to achieve justice.

Conclusion

Through the three media of stories analyzed in this paper, two things are extremely clear: Iraqi women have suffered, and Iraqi women know what change needs to take place to ease their suffering. Whether it be recovering from torture, psychological effects of imprisonment and rape, dealing with the loss of loved ones, rejections by their own family members, not having the opportunity to advance their education, careers, or even walk freely alone for fear of kidnapping or worse- women are informed, living and breathing bodies of testimony. For transitional justice, the aim of including women and women’s rights groups in the discussion of their own rights is imperative to healing the wounds caused by such abuses. Not just their recorded stories, but also their amplified voices need to lead the way in the implementation of a comprehensive plan for achieving justice in times of transition, and for the prevention of further atrocities.

Bibliography

Aoláin, Fionnuala Ní. "Women, Security, and the Patriarchy of Internationalized Transitional Justice," Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 31 no. 4, 2009, pp. 1055-1085. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/hrq.0.0114.

Group 121, Focus Group Interviews About Human Rights, International Center for Transitional Justice Records, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Group 182, Focus Group Interviews About Human Rights, International Center for Transitional Justice Records, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Group 332, Focus Group Interviews About Human Rights, International Center for Transitional Justice Records, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

“Guide to the photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, 2004 April-May,” Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Hernández Hernández, Pablo. "Justice and Testimony between Image and Word. Foundations for a Photographic Study of Guerrilla Movements in Central America," Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, 2014.

ICTJ Roundtable with Higher Council for Reparations, International Center for Transitional Justice Records, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Meeting to Discuss Sectarian Violence, International Center for Transitional Justice Records, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Moghadam, Valentine M. "Peacebuilding and Reconstruction with Women: Reflections on Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine." Development 48, no. 3 (09, 2005): 63-72.

Nouraie-Simone, Fereshteh. “Wings of Freedom: Iranian Women, Identity, and Cyberspace.” On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era, Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2014, pp. 61–79.

“Preface,” Folder 1, Focus Group Interviews About Human Rights, International Center for Transitional Justice Records, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Print RL11106-P-01, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Print RL11106-P-03, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Print RL11106-P-09, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Print RL11106-P-10, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Print RL11106-P-12, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Print RL11106-P-18, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Print RL11106-P-21, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Riverbend. Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq. Feminist Press at the City Univ. of New York, 2007.

Segall, Kimberly Wedeven. “Baghdad Blogs and Gender Sites: An Iraqi Spring for Youth Culture?” Performing Democracy in Iraq and South Africa: Gender, Media, and Resistance, Syracuse University Press, 2016, pp. 78–101.

St Clair, Olivia. "Building Backwards: Helping Heal Iraq Through Women's Rights," Texas Journal of Women and the Law 19, no. 2 (Spring, 2010): 81-98. https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/871111547?accountid=10598.

“Testimonies: Iraq History Project,” International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University. College of Law, 2007, International Center for Transitional Justice Records, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

“What Is Transitional Justice?” International Center for Transitional Justice, 24 May 2018, www.ictj.org/about/transitional-justice.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

[1] “What is Transitional Justice?” International Center for Transitional Justice.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Olivia St. Clair, “Building Backwards: Helping Heal Iraq Through Women’s Rights,” (Texas Journal of Women and the Law, 2010), 82.

[4] Ibid.

[5] St. Clair, “Building Backwards…,” 82.

[6] Ibid, 83.

[7] Ibid, 82.

[8] Ibid, 85.

[9] St. Clair, “Building Backwards,” 85.

[10] Ibid, 96-97.

[11] Valentine M. Moghadam, "Peacebuilding and Reconstruction with Women: Reflections on Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine," (Development, 2005), 70.

[12] Ibid, 71.

[13] Moghadam, “Peacebuilding and Reconstruction…,” 71.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Moghadam, “Peacebuilding and Reconstruction…,” 70.

[16] Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, "Women, Security, and the Patriarchy of Internationalized Transitional Justice," (Human Rights Quarterly, 2009) 1057.

[17] Ibid, 1056.

[18] Ibid, 1084.

[19] Aoláin, “Women, Security, and the Patriarchy…,” 1057.

[20] Ibid.

[21]  Ibid.

[22] Kimberly Wedeven Segall, “Baghdad Blogs and Gender Sites: An Iraqi Spring for Youth Culture?”, (Syracuse University Press, 2016), 78.

[23] Fereshteh Nouraie-Simone, “Wings of Freedom: Iranian Women, Identity, and Cyberspace,” (Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2014), 62-63.

[24] Segall, “Baghdad Blogs…,” 80.

[25] Nouraie-Simone, “Wings of Freedom…,” 69.

[26] “Testimonies: Iraqi History Project,” (DePaul University College of Law, 2007), 8.

[27] Ibid, 8.

[28] Ibid, 7.

[29] “Testimonies,” pp. 80, 46, 31, 68, 66, 63.

[30] Ibid, 66.

[31] Ibid, 62.

[32] Ibid.

[33] “Testimonies,” 78.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid, 88.

[36] Ibid, 16.

[37] Ibid, 34-35.

[38] Ibid, 18.

[39] “Testimonies,” 35.

[40] Ibid, 81.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Group 332, Focus Group Interviews, (International Center for Transitional Justice Records, 2003).

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Group 121, Focus Group Interviews, (International Center for Transitional Justice Records, 2003).

[48] Ibid.

[49] Group 182, Focus Group Interviews, (International Center for Transitional Justice Records, 2003).

[50] “What is Transitional Justice?”, International Center for Transitional Justice.

[51] Group 332, Focus Group Interviews, (International Center for Transitional Justice Records, 2003).

[52] Ibid.

[53] Group 121, Focus Group Interviews, (International Center for Transitional Justice Records, 2003).

[54] Group 182, Focus Group Interviews, (International Center for Transitional Justice Records, 2003).

[55] Groups 121, 182, and 332, Focus Group Interviews, (International Center for Transitional Justice Records, 2003).

[56] Group 332, Focus Group Interviews, (International Center for Transitional Justice Records, 2003).

[57] “Guide to the photographs by Iraqi civilians collection,” 2004.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Print RL11106-P-21, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, 2004.

[60] Print RL11106-P-12, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, 2004. 

[61] Print RL11106-P-10, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, 2004.

[62] Group 332, Focus Group Interviews, (International Center for Transitional Justice Records, 2003).

[63] Print RL11106-P-09, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, 2004.

[64] Print RL11106-P-09, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, 2004.

[65] Print RL11106-P-09, Photographs by Iraqi civilians collection, 2004.

[66] Riverbend, “Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq,” (Feminist Press, 2007).

[67] Segall, “Baghdad Blogs…,” 86.

[68] “What is Transitional Justice?”, ICTJ.