By Sara Al-Hashimi ~
In the sweltering sun of Najaf, 28-year-old attorney Huda Al-Mutlaq stands at a podium within a courthouse, ready to make her argument. Ten years before, she perhaps would have been there—far less as an icon. Huda is among dozens of hundreds of women breaking new ground in Iraq: women long past their time to prove themselves to show their excellence, doing business, politics, education, and civil society with zest and passion.
Iraqi history was replete with powerful women—early Mesopotamian scholars and philosophers and passionate mothers and teachers who held families intact as war waged on for decades around them. There is a new generation today following in its path, not behind it but at its lead, creating national transformation.
“We no longer ask for a seat at the table,” Huda contends. “We are creating our own tables—and inviting others to join us.”
Women in the Boardroom
Iraqi women are starting companies, forming firms, and operating businesses, opening doors for generations of women entrepreneurs to follow. Baghdad and Erbil are seeing a wave of startups by women through shared offices such as The Station and TechHub Kurdistan.
She Codes Too and Women in Business Iraq are some of the sites that offer online capability building, entrepreneurial potential, and networking assistance. The women entrepreneur group in Iraq simply grew like mushrooms in 2023, particularly in retail and service sectors ¹.
One standout is Nakhla, a Basra-based agribusiness run by 31-year-old Salma Kareem, who employs over 50 women in sustainable date farming and export. “We’re not just growing dates—we’re growing dignity and independence,” she says.
Leading in Public Office
Although women are not yet emancipated politically, a change is beginning. In the 2021 Iraqi parliament election, 97 new highs were elected to office, more than double the quota of 25% female lawmakers ². They are activists, doctors, teachers, and lawyers, and each has types of experience to contribute to the policymaking table.
They are Diyala parliament member Lena Al-Tamimi, running on a reforming-and-empowering-the-youth education system platform. “Girls in my village get to see someone like them for the first time making laws,” she says. “Representation isn’t symbolic—it’s transformative.”
They are also showing up in the ministries and councils, elbow-deep at the height of priority reversals from bottom to top.
Education as Empowerment
Education has been the most glaring of Iraq’s gender equality issues. On a positive note, for the first time in Iraq’s history, University Enrollment of women in 2023 was over 50% ³.
Initiatives such as UNICEF Iraq-sponsored Girls Got IT seek to introduce science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to disadvantaged girls. Scholarships and mentoring are shattering glass ceilings into science, engineering, and medicine, historically male fields.
“My father would not have taken me in the first place,” asserts Layla Mahmoud, a student of biomedicine at the University of Mosul. My father arrives and hugs me, addresses me as daughter and scientist.
Civil Society’s Quiet Revolution
And with the de facto assumption of their responsibilities, Iraqi women are remaking civil society. From grass-roots literacy groups to gender-violence NGOs, Iraqi women are leading Iraq’s civil society renaissance.
Women for Peace and Iraqi Women Network are rallying just a few among such organizations empowering women as workplace mediators, social mobilizers, and voice of oppressed communities. Such intervention has an immediate and tangible impact on such communities which have been affected severely from war and displacement.
UN Women Iraq programme empowered vocational training and microfinance lending to various women’s communities, i.e., rural and conflict areas ⁴.
And so does power in opposition—security threats, culture tradition, judicial loopholes—smile. Iraqi women are gaining more. These aren’t symbolic or landmark victories; they’re evidence of more national movement towards inclusion, justice, and power.
With the potential for 20% growth over the next decade, gender gap closure can boost the GDP of Iraq, states the World Bank’s Gender Assessment 2024 ⁵. It also generates spillovers that benefit education, health, and peacebuilding.
Huda smiles radiantly as she leaves the courthouse with a cluster of law students—half of them women. “They’re not sitting by,” she reports.
Sources:
[1] IFC: Iraqi Women Break Barriers – ifc.org
[2] UN Iraq: Women Gain Ground in Parliamentary Elections
[3] UNICEF Iraq: Girls in Education
[4] UN Women Iraq: Women in Leadership
[5] World Bank: Gender Assessment Iraq 2024
