Iraqi women's plight seen as dire

The plight of women in Iraq remains bleak despite a sharp reduction in violence, a study released on Saturday found, with a majority of women lacking basic services and security. "Now that the overall security situation, although still very fragile, begins to stabilize ... countless mothers, wives, widows and daughters of Iraq remain caught in the grip of a silent emergency," aid group Oxfam International said. The study is based on a survey of 1,700 women in five of Iraq's 18 provinces, conducted during the second quarter of 2008, along with more recent interviews. The study, released ahead of International Women's Day on March 8, centred on the impact of the years of bloodshed unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, finding a third of the women surveyed had lost a family member to violence. While attacks have dropped off sharply in the past year, tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the sectarian and insurgent fighting since 2003, and millions more have fled their homes for other parts of Iraq -- or abandoned Iraq entirely. In the Oxfam study, 55 percent of respondents said they had been displaced from their homes since 2003 due to violence or in search of work. Fading violence in most parts of Iraq has allowed attention to turn to the dismal state of basic services like electricity, health care, and education. A quarter of women surveyed in the Oxfam study did not have access to drinking water on a daily basis; almost two-thirds said they had less than six hours of electricity per day. Three-quarters of widows were not receiving their government pension. Forty percent of mothers said they were not sending their children to school. The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is struggling to accelerate investment in reconstruction and services, but results are slow to appear. "Women in Iraq today are even more concerned about sustaining their livelihoods in 2009 ... largely due to the fall in oil prices which they fear will affect their own ability to earn an income, buy food and pay for shelter and health care," Oxfam said. Spending on Iraq's social safety net will likely become more difficult if oil prices, which account for more than 95 percent of Iraqi government revenues, stay low. Oxfam called on the Iraqi government and international donors to back targeted assistance for Iraqi women.