Iraqis commandeer women's shelter co-founded by Nashville attorney
By ANNE PAINE
http://tennessean.com/local/archives/05/01/65416021.shtml?Element_ID=65416021
Martha Boyd hopes others will re-establish Baghdad safe house
A safe house in Baghdad for abused and threatened women - a refuge
that a Nashville Army Reserve major helped establish - has fallen.
But rebels didn't take it. Instead, with no advance warning, the
interim Iraqi president ordered the eviction of the women and staff,
according to a U.S. Embassy daily report.
''One of President Ghazi al-Yawer's staff, accompanied by eight armed
guards, evicted the occupants ... with only 30 minutes' notice,'' said
the Feb. 1 memo.
''They also threatened to arrest the manager of the safe house ... if
he did not immediately cooperate.
''Our British contacts were told by the President's office that the
Council of Ministers had awarded the house to the President and that he
needed it 'for security reasons,' '' the memo said.
''The President's office also questioned why there was a women's refuge
inside the Green Zone and complained that it could become a center for
a 'homeless mafia.' ''
The green zone is an area in Baghdad that is heavily secured by the
military. Three women and a 5-year-old child forced to leave the safe
house were given temporary shelter by a U.S. Army civil affairs unit,
the memo said.
Maj. Martha Boyd, a Nashville lawyer who was part of the previous civil
affairs unit there, said the takeover was a setback for efforts to
protect women in a culture where they have few rights.
''I knew there was always a risk,'' said Boyd, who spent much of last
year helping to establish the shelter.
''The nicer houses over there are always at risk. The government is
essentially sort of acting in a dictatorial fashion. I don't think
there's a lot of checks on what they do.
''I just cannot believe that this beautiful house, set up to make the
care recipients feel safe ... will end because of self-serving
cronyism. ...
''It's not a mortar or a rocket or an IED (improvised explosive
device). It just feels like one.''
While spare by U.S. standards, the four-bedroom house that had been
renovated and staffed with Coalition Provisional Authority funds was a
plum in the midst of the war-ravaged city, she said. Also, since it's
in the well-secured Green Zone, it's safer than elsewhere.
Many officials had wanted the house, according to the embassy memo.
The Feb. 1 eviction was the final result of the efforts of officials
- including the prime minister, minister of culture and minister of
defense - over the past several months to take the building, it said.
Boyd, who talks several times a week to the safe house director, said
she had learned more than a month ago that the house would be taken.
As she and others were advocating to stop it, a government official
told them the order had been rescinded and they let up their push, Boyd
said.
On the first business day after the election, however, everyone was
thrown out of the house at al-Yawer's demand, she said. He is interim
president until the 275-person legislature, which was being chosen in
the election 10 days ago, picks a president and prime minister and
creates an Iraqi constitution.
The eviction came as the center began to implement training programs
for the women, Boyd said.
Boyd, who had lived with the intermittent sound of mortars and rockets
in Baghdad during her nine-month tour of duty, returned to her
Nashville life last October. She's preparing for an April wedding and
is back at work in an ample law office, Frost Brown Todd, which
overlooks downtown.
It has taken ''a bit of an adjustment,'' she said. The people she
worked with in Iraq and their travails are still with her.
''That's my friend there,'' she said yesterday, pointing to a computer
photo of the center's director.
Other photos show smiling women wrapped in shawls who worked at the
center.
She had prayed all would be well when she left, she said.
Things had been looking up. A Romanian company that works in developing
countries gave $250,000 toward the shelter, which meant the government
didn't have to support it. Despite last week's loss, Boyd hasn't given
up.
''There are many nongovernmental organizations that do good work for
women in Iraq, and many Iraqis that will, hopefully, pick up the ball
on this project and try to start again. I think it's worth a try,''
Boyd said.
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