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OPA News Release: [01/29/2004]
Contact Name: Lisa
Kruska
Phone Number: (202) 693-4676
U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao Meets With Iraqi
Women
Two-day Trip Highlights Democratization
Efforts
HILLA, Iraq—U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao today toured
the Fatima Al-Zahra Center for Women’s Rights. The Women’s Center,
part of Iraq’s democratization efforts, helps widowed, impoverished, and
vulnerable women in the Babil Province improve their lives and those of their
children.
“This center and others like it are an important key to Iraq’s
progress toward a democracy in which women are respected and included in every
sector of society,” said Secretary Elaine L. Chao. “President George
W. Bush and I believe that a steady employment situation is essential in
maintaining and building a democracy. Centers like this, with classes,
information and opportunities, will help women find and create jobs. As
employment increases in this country, the foundation of stability and the move
toward democracy in a new Iraq is strengthened.”
The Coalition Provisional Authority and the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) worked with the women to open and fund the
income-generating center. This is the first center that has opened since the
Liberation of Iraq. Activities for the Center include:
- Women and children’s nutrition and health classes;
- Sewing classes and production of clothes to sell in the local
market;
- Cooking classes and work in a catering business that provides food
for the Iraqi Boxing Team training for the Olympics;
- Work in the production of small crops and flowers to sell in the
local market;
- Literacy programs and English classes;
- Internet café to teach typing, computer skills, internet
skills; and
- Democracy education, constitutionalism, women’s rights, and
election of women to local and national office.
Women represent 60 percent of all Iraqis. Saddam’s regime practiced
extreme brutality in the Shiite Heartland—his regime killed over 150,000,
including the husbands, fathers, and sons of many of the women involved with
the Center.
The Women’s Rights Center provides an opportunity for women to
reclaim their freedoms and focus on their futures as leaders and valuable
participants in the reconstruction of a free, democratic Iraq.
The center was opened in October of 2003.
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