Women Legislators’ Reviews Mixed in Iraq
Mariam al-Rayes still remembers the words of a skeptical colleague at law school. “You cannot work as a lawyer because people do not trust women lawyers,” he told her many years ago. Since then, al-Rayes has successfully practiced law and gone on to become one of nearly 90 women in Iraq’s current 275-member parliament, dominated by a coalition of Shiite religious parties to which she belongs. Full Story