Newroz Dijwar/JINHA

HEWLER – In the Federal Kurdistan Region of Iraq, women from the Goran Movement serving on the new constitutional commission say they are determined to make positive changes for women in the region's new constitution.

In the Federal Kurdistan Region, ongoing debates about the process for writing the new constitution reached a new stage on Wednesday with an agreement on the composition of the constitutional committee. The committee composition was determined by party, with the ruling KDP getting six seats, the Goran movement getting four, the YNK four, Yekgurti two and Komala one, with a final seat allotted to the region's Christians and Turkmens. With the process leaving it to parties to decide who would fill their allotted seats, the 21-person committee ended up with just four women.

Kostan Mihemed and Bahar Mahmud are the two woman MPs on the committee from the Goran Movement (Change Movement) party, which assigned half of its allotted seats to women MPs. They say four women is far too few.

"We're living in a patriarchal society," said Kostan. "People still think that only men can do politics on manage things in society. The male mindset does not trust women to take on roles in society where they can do politics, so they don't give space to women or they ensure that women only attend in limited numbers."

Although Bahar says that they wished the other parties had shown the same attention to gender parity as Goran, they say having some women is better than nothing. Kostan and Bahar have so far held meetings with civil society organizations and women's groups about their priorities for the constitution. They are calling on the male members of the committee to support measures for women's rights.

One of the main topics that the Goran MPs will bring to the table is increasing the quota of women in the Federal Kurdistan Region Parliament. With just one woman serving in the cabinet and ruling government in the region, the road to change may be difficult—but Bahar and Kostan say they are hopeful that they can gain support for the changes.

"If it's just us supporting decisions related to women, that won't be right," said Bahar. "We are trusting our male parliamentarian colleagues on this."

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