A member of the Nineveh provincial council claims that the names of over 50 women are listed as mosque imams in the 17,000 contract-based job opportunities s in the province. However, the city administration denies this and exempts the Sunni endowment.
The council member Ahmad Abid Raba made these claims at a press conference attended by KirkukNow correspondent. He expressed concerns about corruption and manipulation in the hiring process of 17,000 people in Nineveh.
The recruitment of 17,000 individuals was part of the three-year budget through contracts. The names of the recruits were announced last year, and they were expected to start their positions in May of this year.
"It is unheard of for women to be appointed as mosque imams. This has never happened in any religion, but more than 50 women have been appointed in Nineveh," Raba stated.
The issue of appointing women as preachers, which is unprecedented in Iraq, went viral on social media platforms.
The Sunni endowment in Nineveh released a statement on their official website, clarifying that they had no role in the list of names and job titles provided to them by the provincial office.
Yousef Mohammed, the head of the Sunni endowment in Nineveh, confirmed this information.
According to a list obtained by KirkukNow, three out of the 20 Sunni endowment positions are held by females, with one serving as the fifth Imam and the other two were listed in their initial letters not in full name.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) reported that the unemployment rate in Iraq has risen from 9% in the early 1990s to 14.2% in 2021.
Out of 40 million Iraqis, 9.2 million are employed, while Iraq's state-dominated economy is led by the oil sector, which provides approximately 85% of state revenue. The government now pays 400% more in salaries than it did 15 years ago. Around three-quarters of the state's expenditures in 2020 went to paying civil servants in the public sector.
Rafaat Simmo, the deputy governor of Nineveh for administrative affairs, denied the claim that over 50 women had been appointed as preachers but was uncertain.
He emphasized that the recruitment process of 17,000 individuals in Nineveh was organized, taking into account various criteria and distributed according to the population.
Out of the 17,000 contracts, 8,000 were for education sector in Nineveh, 8,000 for other offices and the provincial office, including 52 positions at the airport, and 1,000 for the war-torn Shingal (Sinjar), home for the non-Muslim Ezidi (Yazidi) community.
Ahmad Kiki, the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) faction in the Nineveh provincial council, dismissed the rumors of 50 women being appointed as imams or preachers in Nineveh. “It is all rumors up the moment and there is no official proof.”
The issue of the 17,000 contracts in Nineveh sparked debates between the provincial administration and the provincial council, similar to other provinces where the state appointment per temporary contracts based on the three-year budget remains controversial, including Diyala and Kirkuk.
Nofal Suleiman, the director of Nineveh Statistics said the poverty rate was 38%, according to statistics dating back to 2019, and it is the same now. “Rather, it has increased due to the deterioration of the living conditions of people and the lack of economic projects that play a role in raising the standard of living."
The unemployment rate in Nineveh is 32%, which is the highest rate compared to other governorates of Iraq, he added.
Iraq has witnessed a sharp increase in national poverty rate from 20% in 2018 up to 31.7% in 2021and the total number of poor to 11.4 million as a socio-economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, shows an assessment by the Iraqi Ministry of Planning with the support of UNICEF, World Bank, and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.
