Off all the Middle Eastern Muslim nations Iraq is, or rather was, the most progressive when it came to women's rights, even though by comparison women are treated brutally compared to western nations. That being said women in Iraq had more rights than any other Arab country, in the 1950's Iraq was the first Arab country to have a female minister in the government. Under Saddam Hussein's rule the Iraq constitution stated that at least one quarter of the government should be made up of women, women were allowed to seek employment, own property, seek divorce and were even allowed one year's maternity leave. While Iraq was progressive in some ways for a time, it still had a long ways to go. Honor killings are still commonplace in Iraq, which is where a husband is allowed to murder his wife for acts seen as disrespectful, like adultery, in some places a husband can even legally kill his wife for things like trying to read or leave the house alone or without wearing head and face coverings, this occurs most commonly in territory controlled by the Taliban. Female genital mutilation, while not being as common as in other Muslim countries, still occurs in Iraq, this involves the removal of the external female genitals (clitoris & labia) when a girl reaches puberty under the false and barbaric belief that it will prevent women from desiring sex, sexual drive and desire comes from the brain, all this does is reduce the amount of physical pleasure a woman experiences from sex; in addition a number of girls die from this practice due to massive infection. While Iraq had been making progress in women's rights much of that progress was lost following the removal of Saddam Hussein from office and his execution. Since that time a new government has formed, a much more traditional Muslim government that has stripped away almost all of the women's rights laws that had been previously in place and given authority that is normally reserved for the government to religious leaders.