IKWRO

i-Volunteer, 6 December

When I meet Diana Naami, the director of the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, it is only after I’ve negotiated a space in her busy work diary – only after she’s sure that I’m for real – so we can arrange a time. And, of course, I’m politely informed that the London location of IKWRO’s offices is strictly confidential.

Such precautions are not for nothing – they are not an exaggeration. Diana has received numerous death threats for her work among women from minority, primarily Muslim, communities and, she tells me, even been physically assaulted twice for defending a woman’s right to choose – and in the more extreme cases, to live – in the face of a rising tide “honour” crimes.

So it would seem much of Diana’s time is spent talking to the media, she says, trying to draw attention to the scale of a problem which she attributes to the rise of fundamentalism among Muslim communities. IKWRO is one of the organisations on the frontline, fighting this surge and protecting the fundamental and universal rights of women from the Kurdish, Iranian, Turkish and Arabic communities living in the UK.

Much of the work done by the organisation is on a volunteer basis. To date IKWRO employs three full-time operatives and three part-time. The remaining 15 are all volunteers, which should not detract form the value of their work. Diana started out as a volunteer herself when she started IKWRO in 2002 and only began to pay herself a wage two years ago.

“I believe volunteers can make big changes here,” she says. “I’m not optimistic of government help but I am optimistic of charities and those people who want to help. I hope they will reward institutions like ours.”

She has good reason to be mistrustful of government. On November 19th, the Office for the Third Sector announced that it was scrapping the Campaign Research Programme which had promised a total of £750,000 to 32 small charities across the UK.

Breaking the Compact – a mutual fair-play agreement outlining the manner in which the public and voluntary sectors should behave towards each other - the OTS said the money would be transferred to the £16.7m Hardship Fund, which was announced in the 2009 budget to support third sector organisations providing services for disadvantaged people.

The minister for the Third Sector, Angela Smith, says she scrapped the grants as a measure “to support the third sector during the recession”. Applicants have now been told that the Campaign Research Programme, which was intended to help small charities advocate for change, no longer exists.

Recession or no recession, the announcement came as a devastating blow to Diana, coming as it did only three weeks after the OTS sent out formal offers of funding. IKWRO had been offered a £19,000 grant for a Kurdish Outreach worker. The work done would have been costly but effective – many of the women need legal advice, counselling and sometimes a new identity – but now that is not to be. IKWRO simply doesn’t have the funds.

“We will lose one of our staff,” says Diana. “She is a very experienced Outreach worker but we will lose her. We are stunned that the government will withdraw this money. It’s not even a lot of money and I think the government should give more because of the amount of work we are doing. This is extremely important because this person used to reach people that were hard to reach, who didn’t feel comfortable to come to our offices, we had to go to them. For us, it is a matter of life and death!”

The OTS, however, says its decision is final which leaves Diana stunned. “We are sorry for them that they don’t understand the need of this work,” she says. “I am sorry for them that they don’t have the common sense that there is a need on the ground for this money. Recession affects small organisations like us and they’ve now left us more vulnerable.

“What we do is not only about clients who come to us,” says Diana. “It’s about giving advice to other organisations and to social services. Also members of these minority communities don’t have the confidence to go to the police. We are sorry that the [OTS] doesn’t understand the need of this work. This attitude makes us step back and ask ourselves how we are able trust to work with the government. Their Forced Marriage Unit has said we are one of the best organisations to work with and yet they leave us without funds. If tomorrow we don’t have enough staff to save a woman, if we lose a woman then the responsibility lies with the government.”

IKWRO’s s campaign against “honour” crime - “sharaf”, as it is also known – first came to light following the murder of Heshu Yunes, a young girl of Iraqi-Kurdish origin in west London, in 2002. Heshu’s father was later convicted of cutting his own daughter’s throat for her “westernised ways” – for dating a man from outside of the Kurdish community. Heshu was only 16 at the time of her death. It became clear at the trial that the members of the family and the community had been aware of the danger.

At the time IKWRO contacted the police to volunteer its services to help mediate between the police and the Kurdish community. Following the trial the group started the “Remember Heshu” campaign, highlighting, among other things, that 25 per cent of the victims of “honour” crime are under 18.

More recently IKWRO was involved in the case that of Banaz Mahmod who was murdered in Mitcham, London, in 2006 by members of her own family after falling in love with a man they disapproved of.

According to the latest Scotland Yard figures for London, up to 12 people a year are murdered in the name of honour and police fear a further 500 are forced into an arranged marriage or attacked.

By 2004, IKWRO had expanded its remit to include the Turkish, Arabic and Afghan communities, because many of the volunteer staff spoke the same languages and there was no similar organisation doing the same work. And with the group dealing with four times as many complaints as it was in 2007, the calls keep coming and the need for people to answer those phones growing. In fact, Diana says, they desperately need new funds for a volunteer co-ordinator.

“Five years ago we had around 100 cases. Now we have two full-time advisors but they are struggling with the time to handle the number of calls, advice and casework. For honour killing cases you cannot just give the caller some advice and then go. We work endlessly. You have to do everything to save them.”

“When I was in Iran,” says Diana “I couldn’t imagine that such things as forced marriage, honour-killing or female genital mutilation would happen in the UK. In our communities, there is no sympathy for the victim. No-one from the community will acknowledge the woman’s existence. But in Europe women’s rights have been highly implemented so I could never imagine that these things would happen.

“But when I first came here in 1996 my own interpreter was taken back to Iraq to visit her family and she was killed there at the end of that year. When I went to the police they told me that because the crime didn’t happen in the UK it was not investigated. I was so shocked.”

Because of the delicate nature of their work – working with minority communities with very different cultural sensitivities and languages - all of IKWRO’s volunteers are selected from those backgrounds. “The volunteers understand what is going on,” she continues, “and the problems that women are facing within the community.”

But at the mention of Sharia courts to handle civil matters within Muslim communities - as has been discussed by the government - Diana is quick to say that all cases “must be considered as legal matters, not cultural”.

“A woman does not have equal rights under Sharia law,” she says. “They have no right to custody of the children or to seek divorce. It is only the men who can divorce them. The idea of Sharia Courts in the UK creates a big gap between Muslim and non-Muslim women which is a huge discrimination. The fundamentalists will benefit from that, from having power over the community, to arrange law for them. The government are ghettoizing the Muslim community which is very dangerous.”

As for the future, Diana remains hopeful and optimistic, if not in the government’s attitude then in that of charities and the people who are willing to put themselves out to help. “If you take out the grassroots then all you are left with are bureaucratic organs,” she says. “How can that work?”

Despite the funding worries there is even talk of expansion and a change of name. “We want to make it more appropriate for other women from other communities so we’ll drop the Iranian and Kurdish part,” she says. “We want to stick with Middle Eastern communities but we want to make it more of a women’s rights organisation.”

And with that she is off for a BBC TV interview and I take my leave. The TV crew have set up and waited patiently next door but we all have deadlines to keep and Diana a worthy cause to promote.

Lloydy Rundle