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UNICEF:

- An estimated 2 million children in Iraq continue to face threats including poor nutrition, disease and interrupted education.

- Many of the 220,000 displaced children of primary school age had their education interrupted.

- An estimated 760,000 children (17 per cent) did not go to primary schools in 2006.

- An average 25,000 children per month were displaced by violence or intimidation, with their families seeking shelter in other parts of Iraq.

- In 2007, approximately 75,000 children had resorted to living in camps or temporary shelters.

- Hundreds of children lost their lives or were injured by violence and many more had their main family wage-earner kidnapped or killed.

The ongoing conflict and displacement are now putting the welfare of all children at risk, particularly those orphaned. Families struggling to feed and educate their own children are increasingly unable to take on others. A concurrent decline in the number of qualified child-care workers in Iraq makes it harder to provide institutionalized children with the necessary quality of support. This is particularly true for children with special needs, who are probably the most vulnerable of all Iraqis.

UNICEF wary of post-war child trafficking in Iraq

Statement by William O. Brisben, United States Representative to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), on the Follow-Up to the Outcome of the Special Session on Children, in the Commemorative High Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly, December 12, 2007

Iraqis resort to selling children

Abu Muhammad, a Baghdad resident, found it difficult to let go of his daughter’s hand but he had already convinced himself that selling her to a family outside Iraq would provide her with a better future.

“The war disgraced my family. I lost relatives including my wife among thousands of victims of sectarian violence and was forced to sell my daughter to give my other children something to eat,” he told Al Jazeera.

Abu Muhammad, who received $10,000, believes he is now damned by God, but he says his inner turmoil is allayed somewhat by his belief that Fatima will have a better life than many in Iraq.

Alarming disappearances

Local officials and aid workers have expressed concern over the alarming rate at which children are disappearing countrywide in Iraq’s current unstable environment.

Omar Khalif, vice-president of the Iraqi Families Association, (IFA), an NGO ( Non-Governmental Agency) established in 2004 to register cases of those missing and trafficked, said that at least two children are sold by their parents every week.

Another four are reported missing every week.

He said: “[The] Numbers are alarming. There is an increase of 20 per cent in the reported cases of missing children compared to last year.”

“In previous years, children were reported missing on their way home from schools or after playing with friends outside their homes. However, police investigations, police have revealed that many have been sold by their parents to foreign couples or specialised gangs.”

According to police investigations and an independent IFA study, Iraqi children are being sold to families in many European countries - particularly the Netherlands and Sweden - Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

“Taking advantage of the desperate situation of many families living under poverty conditions in Iraq, foreigners offer a good amount of money in exchange of children as young as one month old and up to five years of age,” Khalif said.

He said there are fears children are being trafficked for the sex trade and the organ transplant black market.

Children drugged

Hassan Alaa, a senior interior ministry official, said that while it has been difficult to precisely trace where the missing children are taken, government forces have captured 15 human trafficking gangs operating in Iraq in the past nine months.

“Many were carrying false documents prepared to take some children out from the country.”

“During their confessions, they said many children are sold for as little as $3000 and for very young babies, the price could reach $30,000,” Alaa said.

Extreme poverty

Mahmoud Saeed, a senior official at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, says extreme poverty and nationwide unemployment have pushed parents to the edge, forcing them to make decisions once believed unthinkable.

“Desperate seeing their families without food and hygiene, parents prefer to give their children for adoption, to save their lives,” he said.

The US Department of State

… it is a generally agreed international principle that uprooting children during a war, natural disaster or other crisis may in fact exacerbate the children’s situation. It can be extremely difficult in such circumstances to determine whether children who appear to be orphans truly are. It is not uncommon in a hostile situation for parents to send their children out of the area, or for families to become separated during an evacuation. Even when it can be demonstrated that children are indeed orphaned or abandoned, they are often taken in by other relatives. Staying with relatives in extended family units is generally a better solution than uprooting a child completely.

CHILDREN’S ISSUES: The U.S. and international media have occasionally reported on the difficult situation faced by Iraq’s children, and it is completely understandable that some American citizens want to respond to such stories by offering to open their homes and adopt these children in need. However, it is a generally agreed international principle that uprooting children during a war, natural disaster or other crisis may in fact exacerbate the children’s situation since it can be extremely difficult in such circumstances to determine whether children who appear to be orphans truly are. Therefore, it is not possible to adopt Iraqi children, at this time. For more information on this issue please refer to our flyer Intercountry Adoptions – Iraq.

For information on international adoption of children and international parental child abduction, see the Office of Children’s Issues website.

• Chad, Darfur and the French NGO Adoption Scandal
• IRAQI ADOPTION: MSNBC
• Terre des Hommes
• Children Of Iraq
• Romania: The issue of international adoptions, and more specifically, “pipeline cases,” which refer to the 1,110 families around the world that were in the process of adopting children when the prohibitive legislation came into effect, rapidly became the controversial point of the EP’s debate in December.
• European parliamentarians break the Nicholson monopoly on international adoptions
• ‘Sometimes I wish I had not been saved’
• The adoptions ban is not the best solution to prevent abuses
• UN WORKSHOP EXAMINES NEEDS OF IRAQI CHILDREN IN DETENTION
• MrZine: “… if we accept the premise that adopting children lifts them out of poverty or “saves” them, it is possible to argue that another First-World consumer in fact makes things worse on a global scale. To further deliberate: adoption on the international level creates a “demand” for orphans that is answered by Third-World countries and the agencies that serve them with a “supply” of children; it is problematic to bring a foreign-born child into a non-multi-cultural environment; individualistic, nuclear family-based cultures undo other more community-based cultures. Do we simply deny that baby theft and brokering exist?”

We are all complicit. Being aware a terrible condition exists is one thing, treating it like a spectator sport is another. We can knit our brow, wring our hands and moan at the injustices surrounding the orphans sprouting in the wake of the George W Bush war for remaining fossil fuels. The Pros and Cons are endless for trying to make up for the human destruction wrought by the American Government. These same orphaned and displaced children will survive with a vengeance. As of January 1st 2008, the IBC total for violent civilian deaths to the end of 2007 is 81,174–88,585 - these are just numbers. How many of yjese numbers were parents or children? .Their resentment for being denied their natural heritage is a psychological time bomb. Yes, Iraqi children are only one of the multitudes of examples of Middle East, South Asian and African economies based on child trafficking. Bottom line, Muslim adoptions have strict rules.

(Qur’an 33:4-5) The guardian/child relationship has specific rules under Islamic law, which render the relationship a bit different than what is common adoption practice today. The Islamic term for what is commonly called adoption is kafala, which comes from a word that means “to feed.” In essence, it describes more of a foster-parent relationship. An adopted child retains his or her own biological family name (surname) and does not change his or her name to match that of the adoptive family.

Islamic rules emphasize to the adoptive family that they are not taking the place of the biological family — they are trustees and caretakers of someone else’s child. Their role is very clearly defined, but nevertheless very valued and important.

As honorable as adoptions appear, it is sick thinking to expect a Muslim child to be reared as a Christian. This most diabolical tragedy is equivalent to selling a child into slavery. Any adoptive parent that does not understand this will suffer as much disappointment as the child.

Posted on January 5th, 2008 under Children, Christians, Collateral, European Union, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Human Traffiking, Iraqi Children, Islam, Legacy, Middle East, Time Bomb, US State Department, United Nations, adoption, displaced persons, innocents, negligence, orphans, refugees, slavery, survivors, victims • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback