I am not in a place to judge whether the school’s rules and regulations are valid, but the policy they consistently use, relies heavily on sexualizing and slut-shaming minors, putting them at more risk of domestic violence. This culture creates a space where abuse can occur.

“Reputation, modesty, family’s honour” are words, we (female-identifying individuals) hear at a very young age. These traits supposedly define a girl’s worth and work as her ticket to either heaven or hell. They were to be reenforced, daily, during my years as a student at Al-Hillah High School for Distinguished Girls, in central Iraq. 

Although I finished my studies 3 years ago, I finally have the capacity to write about the abuse we ‘learned’ as teenage girls in high schools in Iraq. This is rather a privilege. As we speak, there are girls still silenced as they are being oppressed. As such, this is an invitation to listen to them through ‘lost’ diaries of abuse.  

For the sake of safety (which is not prioritised by said school), I will not share the real name of myself or the girls who spoke to me about their experience. I choose to define what I have gone through during my time in this institution as systemic oppression.  

However, it’s crucial to emphasise that this is in no way targeted towards the working class, including but not limited to teachers, desk workers, cleaners, and different staff members. They, much like me, are victims of the same corrupt system. 

Learning ‘slut shamming’ 

Oppression in girls’ high schools, for a long time, has been masquerading as discipline. During my time at Al-Hillah High, 100 km south of Baghdad, the school’s administration used sexualisation and slut-shaming to implement a disciplinary system. 

In 2020, I, aged 14, walked to school in a black turtle-neck blouse -which we weren’t allowed to wear- and was escorted to the principal’s office where she claimed I wanted boys’ attention and was a “woman of the night” in Arabic which refers to what might be called by others as a “slut”. The disciplinary code included a call to guardians to inform them about their daughters’ improper attire. 

“Flash forward to 16, I remember seeing girls being blatantly slut shamed for absolutely nothing. They were just chattering, and I remember the teacher wasn’t even employed at our school, but she just sat there and started slut shaming everybody who talked. Some of us didn’t know what she meant so we kept going, me being one of them. She hit some of them and, when they started yelling, she stopped and continued slut shaming them and went out. It was as shocking as it was abusive, and it still cannot leave my mind”, one of my cohorts recounted. 

Another girl told me, “Once, I went to the mid-year exams and there was some makeup left on my face which could not even be seen, in my opinion. Yet they, the staff members instructed to check for dress code at the entrance, dragged me to the principal’s office, scolded me, and they wiped my face but in a way that literally hurt my skin. They made me go wash my face and called my parents, calling me names just because there was mascara and concealer on my face.” 

No pride, only prejudice  

In 2021, school administrators stumbled upon a girl’s social media account by accident. They decided she potentially had a significant other, and that the proper action was to call her parents. Although details on her household situation were not shared, our campus community, like many in my city, promotes and contributes to gossip culture, which leads to victims having their private life judged and examined, and their social life harmed. “She lost her reputation”, they said in the corridors. 

In 2022, I was sitting in class when the principal and her assistants came in, told us to leave the classroom, and started searching our bags without asking permission, for, according to them, makeup, diaries, band posters, non-academic books. When and if found, they would take the possessions. I was called into the principal’s office for owning a book. They said it may contain inappropriate content. My morals and my parents’ raising abilities were questioned and insulted, for owning a book, Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice! 

Once again, the disciplinary code included a call to guardians. I returned home to angry protective parents fueled by what they were told, fueled by manipulated truths told by those I thought I could trust: a principal and a counselor. I lost my book as well as my respect and safety, and that was the worst part. I have always had my head up but, at that point, my guard was down. I felt betrayed, wronged and mostly scared. I was verbally abused, yet I was one of the lucky ones for the abuse only to be verbal. The principal said I had to bring a guardian to get my book back, but I did not. Now I will forever be halfway through Pride and Prejudice. 

Shaming, instead of preventing, self-harm 

Disciplinary policies like those mentioned do not only rely on cruel punishments hurting the social status of teenagers, but also silence a whole student body over emotional, physical, and social abuse at school and beyond. Even worse, as one of the girls put it, “the abuse started so subtly that I didn’t feel it as abuse but more of my fault”.  

In such a setting, the emotional and mental health of students is harmed and neglected. A dear friend of mine struggled with self-harm. Instead of finding support in school, she recounts: 

“When I was 12 years old, the principal noticed that my arms had scars. She called me to come to her office. She started yelling and threatening me that she could get me expelled if my self-harm continued because it makes me a bad influence on others – even though I made sure to hide my scars very well and nobody in the school could see them. She threatened me that she would take my clothes off to see if my legs had any scars. I cried silently because she yelled at me, and I didn’t want anyone to know what was happening, so I begged her not to yell. She stopped, and I just went back to class and acted like nothing had happened. I was too scared to tell my parents this because I didn’t want to get expelled from school.” 

As a ‘pre-emptive’ measure, the school counsellor and some administrators inspected and checked the arms of all students. We were sitting in class doing schoolwork when they came in asking us to roll up our sleeves. The students who were, to use their words, “caught”, including my friend, were subjected to a school board investigation, changed their designated seats in class, and were forbidden from the school’s trip to the theme park. 

Speaking up 

Hate and distrust filled our school halls; as did silence. For the system to be maintained, protest must be eliminated. My voice was, expectedly, silenced. The few of us who talked back when their privacy was stepped over had their safety jeopardised and their pride wounded.   

I was 14 years old when I was name-called and mistreated, and then I decided to talk back. The administrators decided that they could always do worse. An announcement would go around school exposing what dress code I missed or what book I had that allowed me to be punished – so that everyone would know.  

I wonder now, who would have been able to protect us from such structural violence? Is the violence plaguing the Iraqi educational system perceived as ‘abuse’ by the state in the first place? 

Article 41of the Iraqi Penal Code defines corporal punishment at home, school, and in primary institutions as ‘lawful’, despite the relentless attempts to amend that. In 2019, the Supreme Court of Iraq dismissed a legal complaint arguing that said article violated constitutional principles of gender equality and protections against domestic and school violence. The argument was dismissed by the Supreme Court  thereby preserving the article and maintaining the status quo, as was reported by a Human Rights Watch report (2020). This has allowed institutional violence within schools to continue and has contributed to an ongoing cycle of entitlement and cruelty. Most importantly, it eliminates the chances of moving forward and working toward reconciliation. 

Girls’ schools like mine provide potential abusers with a story, a motive, even a green light to commit violence in the name of disciplining a child. Said “Disciplining” is a thin line distinguishing it from violence, a line that was crossed 53,889 times between 2022 and the first half of 2024 in Iraq, based on reports of domestic violence in Iraq.   

While school administrators enforce their disciplinary system, we are one phone call away from yet another victim. After years of living with and alongside abuse and people who normalise it, I am confident to say that such systems may not necessarily create an abuser, but they are likely to establish a culture where abuse is politicised, normalised, and widespread.  

I am not in a place to judge whether the school’s rules and regulations are valid, but the policy they consistently use, relies heavily on sexualizing and slut-shaming minors, putting them at more risk of domestic violence. This culture creates a space where abuse can occur.  

As for me, six years of institutional abuse caged me in a roller coaster of fear and changed my perception of free will. Attending that school was a journey of survival, instead of being the place to grow and develop. I was forced to prioritise my safety thus comply to abusive administration by keeping my mouth shut. Growing out of it has shown me that this is only one ring of a large violent chain, in addition to laws and social norms. There are thousands of institutions practicing emotional abuse and corporal punishments, and thousands of victims like me who lack the keyboard I now hold, all asking when and where do we get to say enough is enough?