Report: Women and children refugees suffer in Iraq

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Associated Press

BAGHDAD - Women and children have been hit especially hard in Iraq's refugee crisis, often forced to beg and in some cases turn to prostitution to provide for their families because so many men have been killed, a report said Friday.

A biannual regional survey by the International Organization for Migration paints a bleak picture of Iraq's estimated 2.8 million internally displaced people, or IDPs. They often face eviction threats and insufficient access to food, clean water and health care despite recent security gains, the report said.

But women and children who have been forced to flee their homes are particularly vulnerable because the men in the family have often been killed or abandoned them in a conservative Islamic society that generally doesn't value women in the workplace.

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Monitors in the provinces of Baghdad and Diyala "have observed large numbers of families with both widows and orphans, both of whom have many difficulties finding jobs, obtaining food, or receiving aid from local authorities and humanitarian organizations," according to the Geneva-based organization.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080620/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_refugees