Veterans battling myriad challenges
When Anthony Vidales walked out of a lie detector test as part of his application process at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department earlier this month, he wanted to cry. He failed the test, he said, due to irregular breathing, a condition he contracted from radiation, pollution and burn pits he was exposed to while fighting in Iraq. “They to…
Read in full »
Iraq backs off media outlets closure
Iraq has suspended orders to close 44 media operations in the country, including the BBC and Voice of America, after an outcry by press freedom advocates, an official said Tuesday. The Communications and Media Commission that regulates the news media in Iraq will give the targeted organizations more time to pay outstanding fees and renew lapsed lice…
Read in full »
Iraqi Children Prostituting
Studies by human rights groups in Iraq have found that there are a growing number of child prostitutes among the nation’s many displaced persons. NIQASH went to Basra’s markets where the underage sex workers ply their unhappy trade. Naji is a porter in the markets in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. His job involves loading his heavy iron trolley …
Read in full »
Iraq war over? Not where Qaeda rules
A spruced-up Baghdad is welcoming Arab leaders this week to declare that war is over and Iraq is open for business. To Um Qassim, carrying her shopping beside a rubbish-filled creek four hours drive from the capital, it is a cruel joke. In her home city of Mosul, out of view of visiting dignitaries, al Qaeda still controls the streets and people like her s…
Read in full »
Iraqi refugees need a lifeline
It has been a brutal and violent few weeks for Iraqis. At the end of October, over 50 Christian Iraqis were massacred at a church in Baghdad. Since then, organized attacks on Christian Iraqis have escalated throughout the country. This is not the beginning of such persecution: of the estimated 1.2 million Christians in Iraq in 2003, only approximately 600,0…
Read in full »
Iraqi Refugees Face Sex Trafficking
Since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, over a million Iraqis have fled to Syria to escape the violence and poverty in their conflict-ridden country. But now a new specter haunts them — sex trafficking and forced marriage. Iraqi refugees in Syria are increasingly being trafficked into brothels, forced into marriages, or pushed into prostitution as a me…
Read in full »
