April 29, 2008

It is only the cost of the Iraq war on American taxpayers, US soldiers, and their families that finds its way to the news headlines (Reuters photo).
Living in the United States today, it is the cost of the Iraq war only on American taxpayers, US soldiers, and their families that finds its way to the daily news headlines. With presidential elections on the horizon and a suffering economy, everyone seems to be pondering the heavy price the US has paid for an obviously unsuccessful war. But a critical component is ever missing from the exchange: what has this grizzly war cost the Iraqis and the Iraqi family in particular?

I recently spoke with two well known activists who have for years toiled for the freedom of the Iraqi people; Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and Hussein Al-Alak, an Iraqi writer and activist with the Iraq Solidarity Campaign in the United Kingdom.

Kelly and Al-Alak tackled how the war and sanctions have impacted the family unit, and in particular women and children.

Stricken Families

The siege had, in ten years, contributed toward the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children under age five. At present, statistics show that in one year, 122,000 families are grieving the loss of their infants and toddlers.

Al-Alak deemed it necessary to consider the status of women before the US invasion and declared, "When the US/UK arrived in Iraq, the policies including the disbanding of Iraq's infrastructure, such as the army, police force, civil service, etc, all carried through under the banner of de-Baathification, which rendered both men and women out of work, in a country where, until the invasion, the role of women was legally and socially equal to that of men." He continued, saying, "It was also recognized by the international community as having one of the best developed health care services in the region and the UNESCO credited Saddam's Iraq as being one of the few countries where children with illiterate parents could go to school, college and university and come out the other end as brain surgeons."

While no one should be surprised at the ruin this stricken nation has endured, I couldn't help but feel profoundly astonished as she went on and on, citing stories of ordinary families, completely and utterly shattered due to war and sanctions.

According to Kelly, those who campaigned to end the economic sanctions wanted people to know that this siege had, over a period of ten years, directly contributed toward the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children under age five. At present, statistics show that in just one year, 122,000 families are grieving the loss of their infants and toddlers. A December 2007 UNICEF report states that 2.2 million Iraqi children lack adequate nutrition. An estimated 75,000 children are living in tents, in Iraq, because of displacement caused by the war. The UN has also reported that 80% of Iraqi families can't separate sewage water from water used for other household needs and that 70% lack access to potable water.

All of these statistics create nightmares for mothers who yearn for basic human rights: the right to shelter, to clean water, to medicines, and to food. The merciless US-led war has undoubtedly stricken every aspect of family life in Iraq, with the examples below as just a few of the uncountable trials facing Iraqi families, and more, Iraqi women and children every day.

Single Mothers

Kelly stated that she has frequently met "single mothers" who simply don't know where their husbands are. A man might go out seeking day labor and never returns or perhaps attempts to enter a neighboring country to find work to support his family and mysteriously disappears.

Kelly mentioned that in one case, a couple crossed over to Jordan in hopes of being able to get desperately needed medical care for the husband. But while in Jordan, they received word that a gang threatened to kidnap one of their daughters. The husband hurried back to Iraq and was never heard from again.

The number of husbands and fathers fleeing from the sheer humiliation of not being able to protect and provide for their families is growing at alarming rates also, pressing the crisis of single mothers to swell.

The sex industry continues to expand in Iraq as the plight of ordinary families compounds. In a nation that has historically upheld the values of education, dignity and family honor, the degradation that young women must feel as they are entrapped into a life of prostitution is unfathomable.

The IRIN news network and later the Iraqi Solidarity Campaign, UK, website published a story about one such young woman. As with all children in the 19-year-old Nafisa's generation, a cruel life in Baghdad forced them to become adults far too soon. After Nafisa's father died in a Baghdad hospital, Nafisa had to take care of her family and invalid mother. Unable to find a job and seeing her mother failing due to lack of medicine and her three small brothers hungry, Nafisa surrendered to her plight and agreed to a man's offer of money for sex. "Mine is a dirty and miserable life," Nafisa laments, "I used to dream of a marriage with a white dress, flowers and a good husband. But now I am marked for life…" Nafisa says that she fears that her neighbors will find out that she is a prostitute and will kill her, but she feels she has no other option. Her only happiness comes from seeing her three small brothers eating.

It is catastrophic, to say the least, that this growing epidemic has grown in the past few years to envelope a younger generation of child prostitutes.

"Wasting"

In a report released by the Iraq Solidarity Campaign, UK, it was documented that today, 400,000 of Iraq's children are also suffering from a condition called "wasting", which is characterized by chronic diarrhea and high deficiencies of protein. These symptoms are largely due to the sheer lack of food. Since the early 1990's, a food rationing system was established to combat the widespread poverty resulting from the UN sanctions. While the UN praised the ration system under the deposed Ba'ath Party, as the "world's largest and most effective relief effort" the program is now under threat and the current US-backed administration plans to abort the entire program by June 2008.

One woman recently said to Al-Jazeera, "If they reduce the quantity of the ration, we will be displaced [made homeless] as the money to pay bills will have to be used for food. If we are considered a poor family today, tomorrow we will be considered absolutely desperate."

The Will to Endure

So how do Iraqi families endure? How can they not let their desperate circumstances and more, their natural — and I dare say — justified animosity towards the ones who ruined their families, their future, and their nation to get the best of them?

Kelly addressed this issue poignantly and profoundly; "Perhaps some in the US would be tempted to observe that the US isn't 100% responsible for the disastrous humanitarian catastrophe afflicting Iraqis today. But can anyone name a war that didn't cause spiraling levels of revenge, retaliation and bloodshed, or recall a war that didn't cause displacement, disease and bereavement?"

Kelly concluded our exchange praising the strength of these young women and children; "I've watched Iraqi children cope with depression and fear when they see their fathers bent low by the ignominy of being "illegal" in a foreign country. I've watched mothers try to hide from their children the desperation the family faces. And I've marveled as I've watched young children adopt the roles of adults, helping their families cope."

Suzanne Baroud is an American writer and editor of several books. She is the managing editor of PalestineChronicle.com, and a regular contributor to IslamOnline.net.