Domestic violence is a global issue that has close ties to human trafficking. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, interview Major Dr. Sami Hussein, Commander, Iraqi Directorate of Violence Against Women, on his work to prevent domestic violence and new legislation which is beginning to provide protection to women in Iraq.
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Dave: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.
Sandie: And my name is Sandie Morgan.
Dave: And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues to be a voice and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And Sandie we are back today with a topic that is of great importance to human trafficking, and very closely related to human trafficking and that is the topic of domestic violence; and that is something that has been very much an issue globally, and not just here in the states. And I’m so pleased today that we have a guest with us that can really bring a tremendous global perspective to us and really educate us about this important issue.
Sandie: Well I’m excited as well. When I first went to the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2009, I was really interested in beginning to understand more about how human trafficking happens in that part of the world. And I was invited to speak at the University of Duhok, and then, as a result of that, made some new friends. Many of you know that the Global Center for Women & Justice had a partnership with the university of Duhok to work on women’s studies projects. Well through that, over the last couple of years, I’ve made several trips; and I met Dr. Sami Hussein, who is the director of the directorate on violence against women in the Duhok region. Now the Duhok region is about a third of the whole Kurdistan region of Northern Iraq. So it’s a wide area; it’s not just one city. It has a million inhabitants and the job of doing anti-violence against women, against reducing crimes against women and children, and trying to change culture in the area of understanding of domestic violence is a giant task. And I’ve been very encouraged by the amazing leadership of Dr. Sami as a champion for women and children in that region. Dr. Sami has a degree in law, and I think what I’m going to do is ask him to step up to the mic and tell us a little bit about how he became the director of the directorate on violence against women: your degree, your title, what you do.
Sami: Hello, everybody. In beginning, excuse me for my poor English language. We could not find a translator for this evening, but I’ll try with my poor English language to explain our experience in Iraq.
Sandie: We appreciate that. And you’re English is excellent compared to my Kurdish!
Dave: And I should say too, we all just shared a meal together before stepping down to record here and Dr. Sami’s English is, I think, exceptional, so I’m so glad that you’re here to speak to us.
Sami: Thank you, very much. I work in the directorate of following violence against women in Duhok region, which is one of the governorates in the Kurdistan region. Duhok region is northwest of Iraq. About one million people live in this region. This directorate was established five years ago in 2007. It’s a very new experience for us, fighting violence against women and domestic violence. We began in 2007 in a Duhok town with very small stuff and a very small building, but now we have 8 offices in every town in the Duhok region. In the beginning, we just worked with 14 police officers, and we now have more than 180 police officers and social workers doing work with us in our directorate. We have a new law established by the parliament of Kurdistan, a new legislation, which is called “The Domestic Violence Law.” In the past, when any man hit his wife or hit his children, it was a very normal thing that happened in the family and the community, but now it is a crime. When anyone does that, he will be put in jail, according to this new law. Yes!
Sandie: Wow, that’s good! And before that, nothing happened?
Sami: No. Before that, nothing happened. Our work is very difficult because I think we’re swimming against the wave; because we cannot change the culture or change the custom in two or three years. I think that we need at least fifteen years to try to change our culture. Therefore, we start with the new generation in the Kurdistan region. We started a ministry of education, a ministry of high education programs, in the schools, beginning with the primary schools to the higher education, to the college, which put this program for domestic violence to make the students aware that it’s a very dangerous matter in the community and will make a big problem in the community.
Sandie: So, when you talk about changing culture, describe for me how the old culture treated women.
Sami: The old culture…they treat women like anything in the house, like a chair, like anything. The woman is apart of the man’s property. He can beat her. He can divorce her. He can do anything with her, and nothing would happen to him. Now…no. The idea is different now. We tried five years ago to make this awareness campaign. We now have a program. Every month we have twenty seminars, which we’ve divided in many towns in the Duhok region. In every town, we have two seminars. We go to the schools, we go to the colleges, we go to the community to make them aware of the violence against women and domestic violence; and we tell them this a very dangerous matter. And now the people can be warned about this kind of violence, and they understand it is very dangerous for our future. In the past, the violence against women was very normal; now everyone in the community looks at the violence against women and domestic violence as a crime.
Sandie: And so, how did the men respond?
Sami: In the beginning, the response was not very good. But now, they respond better. And we hope that in the next year and the next next year, it will be very good.
Sandie: Okay, so the link between family violence and the changing cultural ideas about women connects a lot for me with why women and children are more at risk for human trafficking. So, in the course of developing your program with domestic violence more and more I’ve heard you talk about human trafficking as well. Why has human trafficking not been on the program in other law enforcement but it seems to be something you’re thinking about.
Sami: Yes, trafficking women is one of our ideas, one of the things we think about because domestic violence and trafficking are similar, I think. Because at anytime there may be a woman or there may be children that are victims of domestic violence, and at the same time they could be victims of human trafficking. And therefore, we now try to wo...
