South Central Region, Gender Department
Regional Conference on Woman's Day at Hillah

March 8th, 2005

At 10:00 am on Tuesday, March 8th, 2005, activities of the regional conference started to celebrate woman's day. The conference was held at Women's Rights Center in Hillah. Ms. Sahar Yahia, the Training Manager at Iraq Civil Society Center, made her opining speech about ICSP and our contribution to achieve strategic goals to increase the capacity of NGOs to participate in development and how they can support women to improve their lifes. She also welcomed delegations from provinces who participated in celebrating the woman day. Delegations representatives of provinces in the region congratulated women and made their speeches to stimulate gender development and promotion.

Topics:

Speakers:

Attendants : 90 NGO heads and board members including 30 males and 60 females from five provinces. They represented different organizations, levels, affiliations and ethnics who attended
the conference.

First session:
First part:
Represented by Mr. Hazim Alsafi, who is an active member in human rights organization. He discussed with attendants gradual development and participation of gender according to different circumstances in society. Also, he explained some incorrect use to vague expressions which is used in the Iraqi society.

Second part:
Represented by Dr. Isra'a, law specialist from the Babylon University. She gave a lecture about severe laws which are related to women, such as articles 102 and 137 that prevent women to keep the custody of their children and prevent their pensions. At the same time, allowing men to use polygamy to increase women's suffering. On the other hand, she gave some information about the real view and real respect of Islam toward women.

Poems:
To break tension of political and social topics, Mr. Riyadh presented a wonderful piece of poetry to express love and respect to all Iraqi women. He reflected that he is looking forward to keep assisting women in future.

Second session:
Wide discussions took place about the coming constitution, specific items raised objections and criticism. There were also a useful lecture about Arabic constitutions, next constitution, participation of Iraqi women in the political life and stimulating Arabic women to active participation.

Recommendations:
Participants did above and beyond what was expected of them and discussions had born fruit when participants announced their declarations to be delivered to the decision makers and politicians who will be in charge to put these issues on their agenda: