Welcome to the June/July issue of MADRE Speaks Online. June marks the two-year anniversary of the transfer of power from the US to a supposedly sovereign government in Iraq. Yet, as we know from the headlines, security and basic services are still sorely lacking for women and families. Iraqis remain under de-facto occupation as the violence around them mutates from invasion, to occupation, to civil war. This violence has only strengthened the most reactionary forces in Iraq, further endangering women and girls.

But MADRE and our Iraqi partner are responding. Along with the Underground Railroad for Iraqi Women, an emergency support network to aid women who are threatened with "honor killings" and other forms of violence, our sisters in the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) are organizing "Back to School" campaigns in communities where girls have been pulled out of school en masse due to economic hardship and safety concerns. OWFI members travel from community to community, encouraging and helping families re-enroll their daughters in school. OWFI also provides free health services in impoverished neighborhoods, where they confront violence against women head-on. OWFI women provide support, legal aid, and peer counseling to women who are threatened with violence, while a group of men who support OWFI’s mission talk one-on-one with husbands and fathers about the necessity of respecting women’s rights.

In every community that OWFI visits, they find women who are eager to join them in their work for equality, for peace, to rebuild Iraq on the basis of human rights and real democracy. These are not the people we read about in the headlines, but they are the people on whom a peaceful future for Iraq depends. Your support of MADRE is helping to build that future, not only in Iraq, but in all of the communities where MADRE works worldwide.

In this e-newsletter, we also want to bring you an update on the crisis in Darfur. MADRE is currently working to raise funds to respond to the urgent need for humanitarian aid for women and families trapped by the violence there. We’ve also included a short report on our work with Indigenous women from around the world, at last month’s fifth session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples. As always, we send you this e-newsletter with warm thanks from the women and families of our sister organizations for your support of their courageous work.

Sincerely,

Vivian Stromberg
Executive Director

P.S. Thank you to those of you who gave MADRE to a loved one for Mother's Day. A MADRE tribute gift is a wonderful way to honor someone who inspires you, and makes a great gift for any occasion. Don't forget Father's Day on Sunday, June 18th!