Iraq Ten Years On: What You Don’t Hear!
As 2013 marks the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, I feel there are some points of focus which the media and campaigners need to address, if they wish to provide substance, to any area of serious discussion. Children, like many other civilians, are the silent victims of violence in war-torn Iraq, with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs …
Read in full »
Child Protection needed for 16 Million
In a news release to commemorate the Day of the Iraqi Child, the UN Children’s Fund (UUNICEF) representative in Iraq, Marzio Babille, stated that “UNICEF remains very concerned about the continuing grave violations committed against children in Iraq and calls on all actors to cease indiscriminate acts of violence that harm children.” According to th…
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 »
Refugees in a Desperate Limbo
Iraqi refugee women in Jordan offer an example of hope and resilience. But their desperate limbo is heartbreaking for Samia Qumri to witness in her work for the Collateral Repair Project, a charity started in 2004. Nine years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad in April 2004, the refugee population here offers a rebuke to th…
Read in full »
Iraq's autistic children find refuge
Nibras Sadoun literally adopted the issue of autism in Iraq. While conducting field research in special education, she took in an autistic child who had been abandoned by his mother. Now Sadoun oversees six countrywide offices of Al Rahman Institute, which is named after her son. The institute helps educate and socialise autistic children, who are often …
Read in full »
Iraq Moves to Ban Toy Guns
The Ministry of Health here is campaigning to ban the sale of guns in Iraq. Toy guns, that is. Baghdad’s toy markets are stocked with plastic weapons in all prices and sizes: toy guns, tanks, knives, uniforms, even silencers. In a country where guns and military gear are heartbreakingly prevalent, basic training begins early. “It’s the responsibility of the…
Read in full »
Services project gets new lease of life
A project providing vulnerable Iraqi children living in Jordan with psychosocial services is about to experience a rebirth thanks to a partnership agreement with the Noor Al Hussein Foundation’s Institute for Family Health (IFH), reached on Monday. Terre des hommes Lausanne (Tdh), an international NGO, launched the project in September 2008 with funding fro…
Read in full »
Collateral Damage: The Children of Iraq
We are generally cognizant of the impact that war has on soldiers. We know of old veterans of World War 2, the Korean War, and the war in Vietnam and so on. They used to be 'shell shocked', now they suffer the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Veterans deal with the horrors of war in many cases until the day they die. War is hell! But what …
Read in full »
Iraqi Outrage at American Payout
Iraqis have reacted with disbelief and anger after their country agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to American victims of Saddam Hussein. The package, worth $400 million (Dh1.5 billion), will settle outstanding claims by US citizens who were caught up in the Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait two decades ago. Hundreds of Americans were he…
Read in full »
Iraqi Students try to catch up at school
As Iraq struggles to bolster its fledgling post-war economy, some of the young Iraqis upon whom its success will depend are falling behind. In Syria, which has absorbed the majority of Iraqi refugees, educational difficulties have become widespread. On top of the mental stresses and missed classes due to war, Iraqi students face long commutes to schools tha…
Read in full »
