03-02-2010
By Mariwan Faydullah Salihi Erbil – "He said that I was very hot and wanted to kiss me inside the car. If I refused the kiss, he would tell my family I was a whore," recounts an emotional 21-year-old Kurdish student from Erbil, capital of Iraq's Kurdistan Region, as she tells about a taxi driver who harassed her on the way from Majidi Mall [a luxurious shopping center] to her house. "Off course I refused…I spitted on him, shouted and opened the door and left the car," she continues, while speaking on conditions of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue in the conservative Kurdish society. Sexual harassments are not new issues in the Iraqi and Kurdish societies, but stories of local taxi drivers committing these acts are a new phenomenon. Not only local girls complain about the sexual crimes; some foreign women residing in Kurdistan Region also join the large group of women who demand change. "There should be more protection and laws for women using the region's complicated taxi-fleet," mentions Javon Carter, 26, an American school teacher at the International School of Choueifat in Erbil. "When I got a taxi from our school to Ainkawa [a Christian neighborhood in Erbil), the Kurdish driver took another route and pulled on the side of the road. He was intending to rape me. I kicked him and run away," says Carter. "One day, one guy even grabbed me by my chest," she adds. According to her the Kurdistan Region should operate a taxi-fleet that is affordable, safe and women-friendly. "We want foreign taxi-drivers here, who can speak English and don't attack women. Most foreign women don't dare to ride with a local taxi driver alone," she concludes. A local taxi company that hires foreign drivers, Hello Taxi, is too expensive for most people. "Most people don't afford a short ride of US$ 25…it's just too expensive," notes Victoria Collins, 22, an American expatriate in the Iraqi Kurdish capital. A well organized and affordable, modern and foreign-driven taxi-fleet would be a possible alternative for Hello Taxi, according to her. "Kurdistan always distinguishes itself from the rest of Iraq by telling foreigners it is a safe and secular area. It's definitely not if these harassments are not addressed and solved," comments Collins. She claims that many foreign women, currently working in Kurdistan Region, will reconsider their plans to stay and work in the area if the local authorities do not provide a safer environment for them. "We want safer taxis…women drivers would be a good alternative to nasty men," reacts Denise Armstrong, 33, a Canadian teacher at Erbil's newly established Sabis University. "A police contact, someone who speaks English, will also be very helpful in solving some of the problems the growing number of expatriates are facing," advices Armstrong. "There's not even an emergency number to ask for help when we're facing trouble," she says. Kurdish women also share the same ideas. One university student from Sulaimaniyah does not dare to ride with local taxi drivers in Erbil. "The taxi drivers in Erbil are perverts; they thing that women wearing modern outfits are asking for sex. They are sick," says an angry Sazan Ahmed, 23, while driving her own car. Her friend, an Arab girl from Baghdad, claims that many girls get kidnapped and raped this way. "Those sick taxi drivers tell the girl's sex-stories…touch them…even kidnap and rape some vulnerable girls," tells Huda Abdulrahman, 24. Some women Rudaw interviewed did not have much complain about taxi drivers. "I always prefer to ride with older men, because they're more polite and respectful to women," mentions a 48-year-old housewife, Aisha Latif. Rudaw also encountered a boy who faced sexual harassment by a taxi driver in Erbil. "When driving back home, late at night, one drunk taxi driver told me that I was very beautiful…he touched me and said that he wanted to sleep with me," says a 20-year-old university student, while speaking on conditions of anonymity, fearing reprisal as homosexuality is a taboo in the Kurdish society. "There's no place to go and file a complain…these issues are taboo and dangerous in our society. The victim automatically becomes the suspect here," he concludes. © Rudaw
