By Jacky Sutton
Background to disability rights awareness in Iraq
Iraq signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in January 2012 and ratified it in March 2013. [1] Ratification requires Iraq to introduce anti-discrimination legislation and eliminate laws and practices prejudicial to people with disabilities (Art. 4(1)).
CPRD aims to “promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity” (Art. 1). It shifts the emphasis from a charitable or medical approach to impairment to one that is based on a framework of fundamental, and therefore existing, human rights. This means recognising the agency of the person rather than seeing them as victims - a view which is a factor in global patterns of exclusion and removal of autonomy, which varies according to religious or cultural contexts but consistently positions people with disabilities as cursed, tragic, marginal or passive against a social norm of “able-bodiedness” or “ability”.
CPRD asserts that disability is an evolving concept that results from the interaction between an individual’s capabilities and non-responsive and non-inclusive environments, which are characterised by factors identified by the first ever Global Report on Disability by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank as including cultural prejudice, inadequate policies, lack of data, inadequate funding, lack of accessible services or inaccessible buildings or information. [2]
The CPRD takes a dynamic, inclusive and revolutionary approach that is not reflected in current Iraqi constitutional or cultural norms. A report from the USAID-funded Access to Justice Program in 2014 found that, “While most Iraqis with disabilities consider their impairment to be the source of the problems they face, they also note that families, society at large and government institutions present key obstacles to their enjoyment of life, health, mobility and full participation in society.” [3]
Iraq’s Constitution (2005) guarantees social and health security in the case of “employment disability” (Art. 30:2) and State “care” for “the handicapped and those with special needs”, declaring that it shall “ensure their rehabilitation in order to reintegrate them into society, and this shall be regulated by law” (Art. 32). [4] The 2005 Constitution has been criticized as being unrepresentative and the 55-member Iraqi Constitution Drafting Committee as reflecting expatriate rather than Iraqi concerns. Nonetheless the inclusion of government responsibilities for disability care, which continued a trend initiated in the 1950s, opened the way for developing legal frameworks to support the human rights of people with disabilities pre-CPRD.
In the 1970s Iraq had the most advanced health care systems in the developing world; the Iran-Iraq war increased the pressure on this system as veterans returned from the front lines with mental and physical injuries. Subsequent government oppression and war-mongering caused widespread mental trauma [5] while UN sanctions compounded the problems for those with physical impairments or mental illness. [6]
During the years of Ba’ath Party oppression and the UN sanctions, many medical professionals fled to Europe, where many of them had been sent for government-funded training in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of them returned to Iraq in 2003 and drafted a Mental Health Law that sought to destigmatise mental illness and open the way for a more inclusive society. [7] However in the chaos that followed the removal of Saddam Hussein and the dismantling of effective government, disability rights were pushed to the side and medical professionals, many of whom had been members of the Ba’ath Party in order to gain access to employment or foreign scholarships, were dismissed from their jobs [8] or targeted by criminal gangs or sectarian militia [9] and left the country. [10]
People with disabilities are eligible to receive cash transfer benefits and specified services from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MOLSA), as well as basic health care and rehabilitative services from the Ministry of Health (MOH). The cash transfer benefit is available to qualified vulnerable Iraqis living below the poverty line, and includes persons with disabilities as a specific targeted group.
These entitlements are protected under laws passed in 2009 to compensate victims (or their families) of military operations and terrorist attacks, in 2013 on the “Care of Persons with Disabilities and Special Needs,” and the Social Protection Law of February 2014. In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq a law passed in 2011 provides stipends to persons with disabilities and special needs, whose applications are assessed by a special committee, and a 2012 law mandated a three percent quota for public sector employment. However the UN’s human rights office has reported problems with these processes and allegations of unfair treatment. [11]
There are no accurate statistics on the number of people who define themselves as ‘disabled’ in Iraq, but war, sanctions, terrorism and carcinogenic pollutants from depleted uranium have taken a heavy toll on the physical and mental health of its population. [12] 2011 estimates from the Ministry of Health, based on research carried out in 2009, indicated a figure of one million, which was the figure cited by the Iraqi Association of Disability Organizations. But in the same year WHO estimated two million people living with disabilities in Iraq [13] while USAID’s Access to Justice (A2J) Program in 2013 cited MOH figures of three million, or 15 percent of the population (compared to a global average of 10 percent). [14]
The A2J report notes that the MOH (Baghdad) based its estimates on the numbers of registered Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) – noting that the criteria for “disability” were established by the 1980 Social Security Law as: “Any person who lacks or loses his/her capacity to totally or partially work because of a defect in his/her physical, mental or psychological capacity.” It is not clear whether the Ministry in Baghdad included PWDs in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, who fall under the regional MOH.
A2J also notes that while PWDs are theoretically entitled to the same rights and protections guaranteed to all Iraqis however, many of them lack awareness of their rights or are not able to fulfill the extensive bureaucratic requirements to access those rights. [15] The social stigma surrounding mental illness also means that some carers are unwilling to seek support.
Women and girls with disability, according to the A2J report, face double discrimination as a result of gendered barriers to employment and public goods and services, and the stigma surrounding disability. [16]
In late 2013, according to the US Department of State Report on Human Rights Practices, [17] a new Commission for Persons with Disabilities and Special Needs was established headed by MOLSA to implement the law. But the Commission has been caught in the administrative paralysis of the new government and subsequent national emergency of ISIS.
In addition, disability in Iraq has become politicised because of the economic crisis in the country and the growing sectarian divide. Between 2003 and 2013 Iraq’s economy failed to stabilise, despite the optimism of the immediate post-invasion period. Corruption has become endemic, building on the opportunistic practices that were institutionalised during the era of sanctions and arbitrary rule, and exacerbated by growing sectarianism.
Many of the older generation of PWDs are veterans of Iraq’s war with Iran, most of whom were Shia, while violence against civilians by Coalition forces, Iraqi armed forces and terrorists was and still is sectarian in nature. In this context, disability - or rather access to government disability benefits - has become a perverse asset to be mobilised and exploited in a daily struggle for survival, [18] while public support for PWDs is used by politicians to guarantee a voting bloc and access to international donor support and credibility. [19]
Moving from charity to civil rights in electoral processes
It was against this background that, in May 2012, the author began to investigate the opportunities for ensuring that persons with disabilities in Iraq had access to electoral information in an appropriate format and were fully aware of their rights to vote and to stand for public office.
The next election, for Iraq’s governorate councils, [20] was scheduled for April 2013, with the landmark parliamentary elections set to take place a year later. Elections in the Kurdistan Region were set for October 2013, but the Kurdistan Regional Electoral Office (KREO) was under the administrative authority of the Baghdad-based Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), which was the body responsible for developing new policy frameworks for all electoral events and referenda in Iraq.
The IHEC was established by Law 11 (2007) to replace the Independent Election Commission of Iraq (IECI), which had been created under Coalition Provisional Order 97 in 2004. Prior to this, voting in Iraq was a charade, with IHEC staff sharing memories of pre-marked ballot papers being handed in “elections” organised in 2002 in which the only candidate, Saddam Hussein, won 100 percent support for his continued rule. [21] In 2005 the IECI, with the support of the United Nations, organized national elections, which were boycotted by many members of the Sunni community and which saw the international experts taking the leading role in the absence of experienced local electoral staff.
Between 2007 and 2012 international support for the IHEC focused on building the capacity of the IHEC and its Board of Commissioners to implement basic electoral processes with the maximum degree of consistency and transparency possible. This in itself was an uphill struggle as the IHEC has been subject to political interference reflected during Board meetings as well as through recruitment and staff management processes.
In addition the media and civil society organizations were largely ignorant of electoral processes. Media entities were either burdened with the legacy of Saddam-era propaganda and conspiracy misinformation, while the staff of new media outlets was often partisan or inexperienced. Civil society organizations, meanwhile, had evolved a way to access donor funding and they too were characterized by inexperience or opportunism with no solid understanding of electoral systems and processes.
At that time, IHEC did not collect data on the registration or turnout of PWDs, and while assisted voting was referenced in IHEC Regulation 18 (2009) and the Polling and Counting Procedures (March, 2010), the requirement for assistance was narrow, referring to a “voter who is illiterate, blind, with severed hands or cannot write for any reason” and did not comply with Iraq’s CRPD obligations. The procedures were written by the Training and Procedures Department, and the author organized some in-house training for staff on international good practices in providing accessible information and facilities for PWDs and on the history of disability rights, as well as the CRPD contextualized for the Iraqi situation. It became clear that while staff agreed that physical impairments should not constrain independent voting, most were adamant that people with mental illness or intellectual impairments should not vote or run for office. This in turn led to discussions on how to define mental illness, particularly in the context of Iraq, where some level of post-traumatic stress was the norm. [22]
The author repeated these informal discussions with staff in the Public Outreach Department (POD), which was responsible for voter education and engagement with the media. These too indicated a strong prejudice against people with mental illness or intellectual impairment in the context of voting rights. Almost all those asked said that such people should not be allowed to vote, although no one was able to accurately define either mental illness or intellectual impairment. Nonetheless, the staff was intrigued with the idea of sign language translators for audio visual PSAs, and for posters encouraging deaf people to vote. Discussions on the language used on voter education material, which was formal and technical, and the font size were not fruitful as the person responsible for crafting the texts took pride in his literary style and considered vernacular or simple vocabulary insulting to the electoral process, while the head of the Graphic Design Section was also focused on aesthetics rather than accessibility. Overall, the issue of the rights of PWDs to a secret and independent vote was not seen as a priority by the IHEC Chief Electoral Officer, who considered that the IHEC had first to ensure a comprehensive registration of voters without special needs before seeking to enlarge the franchise.
With regard to international community and civil society initiatives, the USAID implemented the Access to Justice Program, which was aiming to raise awareness of the rights of marginalized Iraqi communities, including persons with disabilities, women, orphans, internally displaced persons, religious and ethnic minorities. In addition, the Iraqi Association of Disability Organizations was set up in 2009 to unite the different disability organizations across the country (except for in the Kurdistan Region, where NGOs operate under separate regional laws). IADO was the main lobbying organization behind Iraq’s signing the CRPD in 2012 but had largely remained focused on obtaining material benefits for its members. The author met with IADO representatives and worked with them to draft a memorandum of understanding with IHEC that focused on realistic, measurable goals that could be achieved by April 2013.
In September 2012 a new Board of Commissioners was appointed after the term of office of the previous Board came to an end. [23] After tense wrangling among the political blocs in Parliament, [24] the confirmation of the ninth member of the Board, a Turkoman, Sunni woman, Ms. Gulshan Kamel, was a boost to the low level advocacy being carried out by the joint UN-IFES disability and gender rights teams. [25] Ms. Kamel had been the head of the Public Relations Section of the POD and as such had been proactive in supporting the rights of women and ethnic minorities. She welcomed the idea of promoting the rights of PWDs, and formally encouraged meetings between IADO and IHEC, the first of which was organised that month. Unfortunately the POD had developed its “Media Campaign Budget” for the Governorate Council Elections and this gave it little flexibility to incorporate “new” stakeholder groups.
Its limited exposure to PWDs meant that the IHEC was unsure how to consult with this important stakeholder group, and the meetings that did take place were difficult to organize because of the lack of access to the IHEC office building. The Commissioners’ offices, as well as those of the UN and IFES, were on the third floor and elevator was not working. Given that most of the IADO delegation members had physical impairments, this impeded their access to the Green Zone and then to the IHEC itself. Nonetheless IADO produced its draft MOU, a modified version of the one drafted in consultation with the author, and both IHEC and IADO agreed to continue dialogue. The UN and IFES presented a strategic plan, “Access Iraq 2013” to the Board of Commissioners for their approval; unlike the IADO plan which focused primarily on physical access to polling centres, the UN-IFES plan took a rights-based approach.
After intense consultations, the author secured agreement from POD that every Public Service Announcement (PSA) produced by the IHEC as part of its public awareness and voter education campaigns would include a representation of a person with a physical or sensory impairment.
As a result, both broadcast PSAs and animated cartoons for YouTube included people in wheelchairs and blind people and had a sign language translator. The POD also developed two posters featuring a deaf person and a blind person, reminding people of the rights of PWDs to non-discriminatory access to electoral processes and information.
Source: Iraq Independent High Electoral Commission Official Website http://www.ihec.iq/en/index.php/news/3762.html.
The IHEC made arrangements with the Ministry of Transport to have some vehicles available to take people with physical impairments to polling centers.
Between January and April 2013, the initiative to support the rights of PWDs to non-discriminatory access to electoral processes and information was subsumed within the operational activities for the Governorate Council Elections. [26] Aside from the token gestures above, little effort was made to forward the Access agenda. IFES included awareness-raising of rights of PWDs in its request for applications for a sub-grant programme for community-based outreach for the Governorate Council Elections. However, just 2 of the 13 Iraqi NGOs selected for funding gave priority to PWDs.
In June 2013, IFES organized a workshop on disability rights for the IHEC but there was no follow-up and the IHEC Board of Commissioners was moving into operational mode and had sidelined disability rights. Sectarian violence in the western provinces meant that voting there had to be postponed and disability rights in Iraq have fallen off the agenda, particularly in the months following the critical elections of April 2014.
[1] UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Available at: https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=iv-15&chapter=4&lang=en
[2] World Health Organization, World Report on Disability, 2011. Available at: http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/report.pdf?ua=1.
[3] USAID, Iraq Access to Justice Program, "Values of Access to Justice and Persons with Disabilities in Iraq", p. 11. Available at: http://www.iraqaccesstojustice.org/assets/usaid-iraq-access-to-justice-program---values-of-access-to-justice-and-persons-with-disabilities-in-iraq.pdf.
[4] Constitution of Iraq, 2005. Available at: http://www.iraqinationality.gov.iq/attach/iraqi_constitution.pdf.
[5] Abed, Riadh, “Tyranny and Mental Health” British Medical Bulletin 2004; 72 1-13; also USAID, Iraq Access to Justice Program, "Values of Access to Justice and Persons with Disabilities in Iraq", pp. 25-26. Available at: http://www.iraqaccesstojustice.org/assets/usaid-iraq-access-to-justice-program---values-of-access-to-justice-and-persons-with-disabilities-in-iraq.pdf.
[6] Kammel, Kari, "Rebuilding the mental health system in Iraq in the context of transitional justice." DePaul J. Health Care L. 11 (2007): 369 - 375.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] USAID, Iraq Access to Justice Program, "Values of Access to Justice and Persons with Disabilities in Iraq", p. 11. Available at: http://www.iraqaccesstojustice.org/assets/usaid-iraq-access-to-justice-program---values-of-access-to-justice-and-persons-with-disabilities-in-iraq.pdf.
[10] Abed, Riadh, “Tyranny and Mental Health” British Medical Bulletin 2004; 72 1-13.
[11] UNAMI Human Rights Office/OHCHR, Report on Human Rights in Iraq: January - June 2013. Available at: http://www.uniraq.org/images/humanrights/HRO_Human%20Rights%20Report%20January%20-%20June%202013_FINAL_ENG_15Dec2013%20(2).pdf.
[12] USAID, Iraq Access to Justice Program, "Values of Access to Justice and Persons with Disabilities in Iraq", p.10. Available at: http://www.iraqaccesstojustice.org/assets/usaid-iraq-access-to-justice-program---values-of-access-to-justice-and-persons-with-disabilities-in-iraq.pdf.
[13] World Health Organization, Iraq. Available at: http://www.emro.who.int/irq/iraq-news/ministry-of-health-of-iraqwho-launch-global-report-on-disability.html.
[14] USAID, Iraq Access to Justice Program, "Values of Access to Justice and Persons with Disabilities in Iraq", p.11. Available at: http://www.iraqaccesstojustice.org/assets/usaid-iraq-access-to-justice-program---values-of-access-to-justice-and-persons-with-disabilities-in-iraq.pdf.
[15] Ibid., pp. 15-19.
[16] Ibid., pp. 28-30.
[17] US Department of State, Iraq 2013 Human Rights Report. Available at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/220565.pdf.
[18] This phenomenon was also seen by the author while working in the Gaza Strip in 2010 in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead; a “disability mafia” had been established that controlled the distribution of prosthetics, adult diapers and care packages. The discussions in working groups established by the UN to manage the allocation of charity was devoid of any talk of human rights and focused instead on handouts and efforts by those present to exclude others from benefits.
[19] Al-Hakim foundation Website: http://www.alhakimfd.org/WorkingTowardsMDGS.html.
[20] Elections were originally scheduled for all provinces in Iraq outside the Kurdistan Region.
[21] BBC News, Saddam 'wins 100% of vote', 2002. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2331951.stm.
[22] Abed, Riadh, “Tyranny and Mental Health” British Medical Bulletin 2004; 72 1-13; also USAID, Iraq Access to Justice Program, "Values of Access to Justice and Persons with Disabilities in Iraq", pp. 25-26. Available at: http://www.iraqaccesstojustice.org/assets/usaid-iraq-access-to-justice-program---values-of-access-to-justice-and-persons-with-disabilities-in-iraq.pdf.
[23] UN Iraq, The Board of Commissioners of the Iraqi Election Commission Fact sheet, 2013. Available at: http://www.uniraq.org/images/Electoral/20130918_FS2-BOC-En.pdf.
[24] Aswat Al Iraq, SRSG Kobler welcomes appointment of IHEC Board of Commissioners, 2012. Available at: http://en.aswataliraq.info/(S(hgcut1avmg2zuz55kdutt0i3))/Default1.aspx?page=article_page&id=150650 - the Christian bloc in Parliament backed a male, Christian candidate against Ms. Kamel, while the UN backed the single female Board member.
[25] The UN was taking the lead in joint UN-IFES gender rights initiatives, while IFES was taking the lead in joint UN-IFES disability rights activities.
[26] Iraq Independent High Electoral Commission Official Website, IHEC urges voters with disabilities to vote in the upcoming Governorate Council Elections. Available at: http://www.ihec.iq/en/index.php/news/3762.html.
