BAQUBA, Mar 10 (IPS) - A report from the non-governmental relief organisation Save the
Children shows Iraq continues to have the highest mortality for
children under five. Since the first Gulf War, this has increased 150
percent. It is estimated that one in eight children in Iraq dies before
the fifth birthday: 122,000 children died in 2005 alone. Iraq has a
population of about 25 million.
According to a UN Children's
Fund report released this month, "at least two million Iraqi children
lack adequate nutrition, according to the World Food Programme
assessment of food insecurity in 2006, and face a range of other
threats including interrupted education, lack of immunisation services
and diarrhea diseases."
IPS interviewed three children from
different districts of Baquba, the capital city of Iraq's volatile
Diyala province, 40 km northeast of Baghdad.
Firas Muhsin is
seven, and lives in Baquba with his mother. His father was killed two
years ago by militants who shot him in his shop.
Firas attends
school four hours every day near his house. On rare occasions he gets
to play with neighbours' children, but always under the eyes of his
mother.
Firas is allowed to move no more than ten metres from
the house; his mother is afraid of strangers. Kidnapping of Iraqi
children is common now, and many are believed to have been sold as
child labourers or as sex workers.
Iraqi officials and aid
workers have recently expressed concern over the alarming rate at which
children are disappearing countrywide in Iraq's unstable environment.
Omar
Khalif is vice-president of the Iraqi Families Association (IFA), an
NGO established in 2004 to register cases of the missing and
trafficked. He told reporters in January that on average at least two
Iraqi children are sold by their parents every week. In addition,
another four are reported missing every week.
"The numbers are
alarming," Khalif said. "There is an increase of 20 percent in the
reported cases of missing children over a year."
Firas spends
hours each day sitting at the door looking at people. The door is his
only outlet. In the afternoon, his mother calls him inside to do his
homework. After dinner, his big hope is to watch cartoons -- if there
is electricity from their private generator.
The mother faces a
shortage of kerosene needed just for heating. "My children feel cold
and I cannot afford kerosene," she told IPS.
Many children
Firas's age do not get to school at all. According to the UN, 17
percent of Iraqi children are permanently out of primary school, and an
estimated 220,000 more are missing school because they and their
families have been displaced. That adds up to 760,000 children out of
primary school in 2006.
These are in-country figures, and do not
include the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and youth whose
education is interrupted or ended because their families have fled to
other countries. UNHCR estimates that at least 2.25 million Iraqis have
fled their country.
Qusay Ameen is five, and lives with his
mother, father, two sisters and a brother. His father was a sergeant in
the former military, and is now unemployed. He receives a monthly
pension of 110 dollars. He tries to support the family by selling
cigarettes on the roadside. Qusay's mother is a housekeeper. Qusay
hopes to begin school next year when he turns six.
After
breakfast, always something simple like fried tomato with bread, Qusay
wants to play, but he has nothing to play with but a small broken
plastic car his brother found near the neighbour's door. He spends most
of the morning playing with this car. He seems happiest when he gets to
visit his neighbour's house, because they have a swing in the garden.
Like most Iraqi children now, Qusay has grown used to being in need. He rarely gets sweets, or new clothes.
The
family house is incredibly small -- one bedroom and a place used as
both kitchen and bathroom. Everyone sleeps in one room, which is
extremely cold through the winter months. There are not enough beds or
covering, and everyone has to sleep close together for warmth.
The
house has few basic necessities, and of course no television or useful
household appliances. There is a small kerosene cooker used for both
cooking and heating.
According to the UN Children's Fund, only
40 percent of children nationwide have access to safe drinking water,
and only 20 percent of people outside Baghdad have a working sewerage
service. About 75,000 children are among families living in temporary
shelters.
Ali Mahmood, 6, has lived with his uncle in Baquba
after his parents were killed by a mortar explosion two years ago in
random shelling by militants. Next year he will join primary school
near his uncle's house.
Ali's days are alike, and quiet. His
only friends are his uncle's children. When they go to school, he
simply spends his time alone. It does seem the uncle's family is not
able to look after him as well as his own might have. His uncle Thamir
is doing his best, but life is difficult, and Thamir has responsibility
for a big family.
Ali is deprived of just about everything in
childhood; he has no place to play, or things to play with. And he has
nobody to think of his future.
And already, he has responsibilities waiting; he has been told he must take care of his younger brother when he grows up.
Firas, Qusay and Ali are all children, but none the way children should be.
Writings 
Subscribe to this comment's feed
