In early August, the Iraqi Tradition and Media Fee issued a directive banning the usage of the time period “gender” in all public communications. It additionally advisable the alternative of the phrase “homosexuality” with “sexual deviance”.

The choice got here on the again of an organised disinformation marketing campaign in Iraqi media retailers largely owned or managed by the dominant post-2003 political events. The marketing campaign linked the usage of the time period “gender” in Iraq with the “proliferation” of homosexuality, the “promotion” of transgender identities, “ethical decay” and the violation of spiritual and nationwide values.

The ban has already had adverse penalties on the work of teachers in universities and workers at humanitarian organisations. Some professors instructing gender research have needed to droop their programs, whereas NGO employees engaged in “gender programming” inside the growth sector have been warned to keep away from utilizing the time period of their work.

Furthermore, it has led to a proposal inside Parliament to amend the anti-prostitution legislation to incorporate a bit criminalising homosexuality with penalties together with loss of life.

The backlash towards the usage of the time period “gender” and the deliberate distortion of its that means isn’t distinctive to Iraq. Conservative actors from the world over have attacked the phrase as a part of a pushback against gender equality positive aspects.

However in Iraq, the “anti-gender” marketing campaign additionally displays rising efforts by mainstream events to shrink Iraq’s civic space in an try and reverse their very own declining recognition. In recent times, they’ve instrumentalised broad and obscure legal guidelines to focus on anybody – from activists to apolitical social media influencers – deemed to have violated “public morals”.

This comes at a time when Ladies legislators maintain virtually 30 % of parliamentary seats for the primary time because the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. However whereas holding a place of energy, these ladies have been largely silent and even inspired a few of these insurance policies.

Even ladies legislators, members of the Parliamentary Committee on Girls, Kids and Household, haven’t spoken up, together with when the Tradition and Media Fee issued its ban on “gender”.

Maybe their silence is unsurprising on condition that those that have tried to counter the disinformation circulating concerning the that means of the time period have been viciously attacked within the media. For instance, main Iraqi feminist activist Hanaa Edwar has been subjected to insults and misogynistic slurs; she has been referred to as the “mom of homosexuality” in Iraq and labelled a international agent who “set the groundwork for planting homosexuality and ethical depravity” within the nation.

The previous two years have additionally seen a string of much-publicised killings of ladies, which have reignited the general public debate concerning the pressing want for a domestic violence law. Since 2015, drafts of such laws have been vehemently opposed in parliament on the grounds that it could violate Islam, go towards “nationwide values” and could be “incompatible with Iraqi tradition”.

Factions related to the present governing alliance – the Shia Coordination Framework – together with the Advantage Social gathering, State of Legislation Coalition and the Fatah Alliance – have been probably the most vocal in these debates.

Previously, some ladies lawmakers have tried to push for the laws, however at the price of threats and intimidation. In 2019, when Haifa Al-Amin, a member of parliament from the Iraqi Communist Social gathering (ICP), referred to as for the adoption of the home violence legislation, she confronted an indignant mob of Advantage Social gathering supporters, calling for her execution and for the burning of the ICP’s headquarters.

Within the present parliament, just a few ladies legislators have tried to push for the legislation to be voted on and have thus far did not put it on the agenda.

Whereas gender considerations everybody and the onus to advertise and defend human rights shouldn’t be put solely on the backs of ladies, this however begs the query: why regardless of their substantial presence in parliament, have ladies member of parliament not mounted a concerted effort to assist defend ladies towards home violence and oppose the backlash towards “gender”?

One reply is that Iraq’s mainstream political events are gatekeepers on the subject of the candidates chosen to run for election. That’s the reason, solely these ladies who’ve pre-existing connections to native and nationwide elites and are more likely to toe the get together line are nominated within the first place.

Because of the low standing afforded to ladies inside society and inflexible expectations about how ladies ought to behave, it’s typically extra harmful for them to go towards the agendas of those that helped them achieve energy than it’s for males within the place, with transgressions on their half more likely to be punished extra severely.

Due to the dominance of the institution political events in parliamentary politics, only a few of the ladies in parliament are impartial or from opposition events – and thus extra more likely to problem regressive insurance policies.

Within the 2021 elections, solely 16.4 % of the 946 ladies who ran for election didn’t have a celebration affiliation. Of those that received seats, 5 have been impartial and an additional seven have been from reformist events akin to Imtidad, New Technology and Isharaqat Kanoon.

Moreover, the grip on Iraqi politics the mainstream events have been capable of preserve, regardless of being more and more unpopular, has additionally helped undermine any efforts to convey reformist and impartial forces collectively.

After the exit of the Sadrist bloc in 2022 and the redistribution of its seats to the remaining forces in parliament, the proportion of impartial legislators and those that are members of different events rose to 26 %. However the disunity on this group has made it unattainable to push for extra progressive laws.

It has additionally allowed mainstream events to usher in a sequence of socially conservative measures in a determined try and win extra recognition amongst conservative components in society and preserve their grip on energy.

These efforts have solely intensified as Iraq has drawn nearer to the provincial elections scheduled to happen on the finish of the yr.

To problem the backsliding on ladies’s rights in Iraq, and human rights extra broadly, Iraqi ladies – and males – want extra different routes into politics that don’t contain the networks of the dominant post-2003 events. And people would open up provided that the mainstream events’ grip on energy is loosened from beneath.

The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.