I 
108TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 4671
To authorize assistance for education and health care for women and children 
in Iraq during the reconstruction of Iraq and thereafter, to authorize 
assistance for the enhancement of political participation, economic em-
powerment, civil society, and personal security for women in Iraq, to 
state the sense of Congress on the preservation and protection of the 
human rights of women and children in Iraq, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 23, 2004
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas (for herself, Ms. DUNN, Ms. 
SLAUGHTER, Mrs. CAPITO, Ms. SOLIS, Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of 
Florida, Mrs. MALONEY, Mrs. BIGGERT, Mr. HOBSON, Mr. OSBORNE, 
and Ms. SCHAKOWSKY) introduced the following bill; which was referred 
to the Committee on International Relations 
A BILL 
To authorize assistance for education and health care for 
women and children in Iraq during the reconstruction 
of Iraq and thereafter, to authorize assistance for the 
enhancement of political participation, economic em-
powerment, civil society, and personal security for women 
in Iraq, to state the sense of Congress on the preserva-
tion and protection of the human rights of women and 
children in Iraq, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Iraqi Women and Chil-
dren’s Liberation Act of 2004’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress makes the following findings: 
(1) For more than 600 years under the Otto-
man Empire, women in Iraq were kept inside their 
homes, repressed, and forbidden to be seen in public 
without a related male escort. 
(2) The Sevres Treaty of 1919, following World 
War I, installed a new monarchy in Iraq under 
which education for boys and girls flourished. 
(3) Within a span of 20 years, 6 centuries of 
repression of women in Iraq was reversed. Thou-
sands of women in Iraq became lawyers, physicians, 
educators, teachers, professors, engineers, prominent 
writers, artists, and poets, demonstrating the impact 
of progressive policies on the ability of women in 
Iraq to achieve. 
(4) In 1941, women in Iraq earned equal wages 
for equal jobs, an achievement still not duplicated in 
most parts of the world. 
(5) On July 14, 1958, the monarchy in Iraq 
was overthrown by General Abdul-Karim Kasim, 
who enfranchised women in Iraq with political 
rights.
(6) In 1959, Iraq became the first country in 
the Middle East to have a female minister, four fe-
male judges, prominent scientists, politicians, and 
freedom fighters. 
(7) The 1959 Code of Personal Status secular-
ized the multi-ethnic state of Iraq. Women enjoyed 
political and economic rights, successfully partici-
pating in the workforce as well as advancing in the 
political sphere. Women had the right to receive an 
education and work outside the home. Women were 
career military officers, oil-project designers, and 
construction supervisors, and had government jobs 
in education, medicine, accounting, and general ad-
ministration. 
(8) The Code of Personal Status also granted 
women extensive legal protections. It gave women 
the right to vote and granted equal status to men 
and women under the law. It prohibited marriage by 
persons under the age of 18 years, arbitrary divorce, 
and male favoritism in child custody and property 
inheritance disputes. 
(9) The regime of Saddam Hussein regularly 
used rape and sexual violation of women to control 
information and suppress opposition in Iraq and tor-
tured and killed female dissidents and female rel-
atives of male dissidents. 
(10) The Department of State has reported 
that more than 200 women in Iraq were beheaded 
by units of ‘‘Fedayeen Saddaam’’, a paramilitary or-
ganization headed by Uday Hussein. 
(11) After the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the re-
gime of Saddam Hussein imposed policies that re-
sulted in severe economic hardship, discrimination, 
impoverishment, and oppression of women in Iraq. 
Many women were prevented from working. Pres-
ently, women comprise as much as 65 percent of the 
population of Iraq, but only 19 percent of the work-
force. 
(12) Men who killed female relatives in ‘‘honor 
killings’’ were protected from prosecution for murder 
under Article 111 of the Iraqi Penal Code enacted 
in 1990. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on 
Violence Against Women has reported that since the 
enactment of that article, more than 4,000 women 
were killed for tarnishing the honor of their families, 
with the killings occurring by a range of methods 
that included stoning. 
(13) Maternal mortality is the leading cause of 
death among women of reproductive age in Iraq, and
it continues to rise due to lack of basic health care. 
The maternal mortality rate in Iraq is 292 deaths 
per 100,000 live births compared with a maternal 
mortality rate in the United States of 8 deaths per 
100,000 live births. 90 percent of the maternal 
deaths in Iraq are identified as preventable. 
(14) More than 48 percent of the population of 
Iraq is under the age of 18 years. 1 in 4 children 
of the age of 5 years or younger is chronically mal-
nourished. 1 in 8 children dies before the age of 5 
years, the highest rate of mortality among children 
under that age in the region. Some estimate the 
total rate of child mortality in Iraq to be as high as 
13 percent. 
(15) Girls and women in Iraq have meager edu-
cational opportunities relative to the opportunities 
available to men and boys in Iraq, and twice as 
many boys as girls in Iraq attend school. 29 percent 
of females attend secondary school as compared with 
47 percent of males. The illiteracy rate in Iraq is the 
highest in the Arab world at 61 percent for the gen-
eral population, 77 percent for women, and 45 per-
cent for men. 
(16) Press accounts indicate that many women 
in Iraq are being pressured to adhere to strict Is-
lamic codes that restrict their mobility and impinge 
on their human rights. 
(17) Security for women in Iraq is an issue of 
grave concern. Women are afraid to leave their 
homes or to send their daughters to school. 
(18) Women in leadership positions in Iraq are 
vulnerable to attack. 1 of the 3 women on the Iraqi 
Governing Council was assassinated, and another 
has a $2,000,000 bounty on her head. 
(19) Women from the autonomous Kurdish re-
gion travel freely, hold important jobs and political 
positions, and perform a key role in the revival of 
the areas of Iraq that have been under Kurdish con-
trol. The integration of women in the economic and 
political spheres of the region provides a contrast to 
the rest of Iraq and serves as an example of what 
is possible in Iraq. 
(20) According to the 2003 Arab Human De-
velopment Report of the United Nations, pervasive 
exclusion of women from the political, economic, and 
social spheres hampers development and growth in 
Arab countries. 
(21) Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the Presi-
dential Envoy to Iraq, has voiced his support of 
women in Iraq in stating that ‘‘[w]e in the coalition