Occupation's Toll: 5 Million Iraqi Children Orphaned

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted December 18, 2007.

5 Million Iraqi Orphans, Anti-corruption Board Reveals
Voices of Iraq

Iraq's anti-corruption board revealed on Saturday that there were five million Iraqi orphans as reported by official government statistics, urging the government, parliament, and NGOs to be in constant contact with Iraq's parentless children.

"The government should set up an institutional or legislative program to help the Iraqi orphans. Iraqi is an oil-rich country and it is not acceptable that its orphans remain groaning in this tragedy," the anti-corruption board chief, Moussa Faraj, said during a conference in Baghdad dedicated to orphans in Iraq.

Harsh Reality for Iraq's Orphans
Voices of Iraq

Unlike orphans in many countries in the world, most Iraqi orphans lost their parents around the same time and under horrible circumstances. In addition to their desire for compassion and care, those children need to overcome their sad memories and make a new beginning in life.

Recounting her traumatic memories, Halima, a nine-year-old girl who is living in a public orphanage, said that she lost her parents in a blast that ripped through a local market in a Baghdad neighborhood.

"We were shopping in a popular market in Baghdad al-Jadida neighborhood when a car bomb detonated. I still recall how bodies turned into charcoal," Halima told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

"I was taken to the hospital for treatment and was told that my parents were killed. My younger brother survived and was adopted by a loving family. It was my relatives who brought me to this orphanage," the girl added.

"Our problem here is that we do not receive academic education. If only the government could build special schools for us to guarantee our future," she said. […]

Nadira Habib, a member of the Committee on Family and Childhood Affairs in the Iraqi parliament, indicated that the situation requires wise handling.

"Iraqi orphans are increasing everyday because of the constant wars that the country has been going through," Habib explained, citing an estimated three to four million Iraqi orphans according to figures released by the Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation.

Highlighting the importance of small loans to poor people, particularly those who lost their breadwinners, Habib said that only 469 orphans are currently sponsored by the government.

Meanwhile, Abir al-Jabli, a head of department in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, said that sponsoring orphans should not only be the concern of the government. According to al-Jabli, those children would be better taken care of by their relatives.

Maysoun al-Damlouji, a member of the parliament's Civil Society Organizations Committee, slammed a recent government decision that closed down all private orphanages. "Instead of helping private institutions improve their performance and remove all obstacles hindering their work, the Iraqi government decided to close them down, adding to the complexity of the situation in the state-run institutions.

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