IRAQ: Ministry copes with rising numbers of orphaned children

[leftchick]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/7efa169e19d7d6b31ed5456f0df71977.htm

BAGHDAD, 18 April (IRIN) - Orphans in Iraq, who often lack protection, food supplies and medical assistance, require urgent assistance, according to officials at the Orphans Houses Department at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

"Orphaned children have become a very serious issue," said department director Abeer Mahdi al-Chalabi. "We have 23 orphanages with limited capacity, capable of housing only about 1,600 orphans."

Although there are seven orphanages in the capital, Baghdad, and another 16 in other provinces, "they aren't enough to provide assistance to all the orphans in the country", said al-Chalabi. She went on to point out that the increase in the number of orphans countrywide was an inevitable result of the bombings, assassinations and sectarian violence currently plaguing the country.

According to a 2005 report issued by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), there were some 5,000 orphans in the capital alone, many of whom have been ostracised by society and have little hope of finding education or shelter.

:(

[xultar]

1. I would love to adopt but I bet the new Iraqi government wouldn't

allow it.

[TAPat]

4. I was just thinking the exact same thing...

nor would ours, maybe?
We have plenty of room and lots of love. :grouphug:
My partner is a Korean occupation orphan who was adopted by folks in the States. She came over a 8 and remembers very well how tough it was, both being an orphan and coming to a foreign country.

[xultar]

7. That is pretty kewl. Love conquers all even over amazing odds.

[TAPat]

2. Yet another cost of war...

:cry:

[Ilsa]

3. I wish we could send them to the White House to live. eom

[rodeodance]

5. how terrible for them-first they lose their family--then ostracised.

[rodeodance]

6. I do not get a sense of Why these kids are ostracized?--

....According to a 2005 report issued by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), there were some 5,000 orphans in the capital alone, many of whom have been ostracised by society and have little hope of finding education or shelter.

"My two brothers and I work with our uncle in the streets of Baghdad as peddlers," said Ahmed Chaloob, 10, whose parents were killed in a bomb attack two months ago. "I know nothing about orphanages, and I don't think my uncle would let us go because he needs us to work," added Chaloob, who currently lives in a small room with eight other relatives.

Orphans often live in the streets as beggars or drug addicts. Some are believed to have been used by terrorists to carry out attacks; others have reportedly been forced by criminal gangs to work as thieves, according to ministry officials.

Given the prevailing atmosphere of violence and confusion, there are no reliable statistics for the number of orphans in the country. "We don't have accurate numbers," said al-Chalabi. "Officially, there are 642 orphans registered in our orphanages," he added, estimating this number to represent a mere 10 percent of the total number nationwide.

[sidpleasant]

8. Freepers will say ..

... it's better that these poor children be "ostracised by society and have little hope of finding education or shelter" than they should be adopted by gay couples.

Add another 5000 to the count of lives destroyed by Bush.