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Iraqi Children Pay the Price of "Freedom"
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Iraqi
children are paying the price for the occupation.
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By
Saleh Amer, IOL Correspondent
MOSUL,
February 22, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Almost two years after the
US-led forces occupied Iraq, the children of the northern city of
Mosul have united in grief and need, working around the clock to help
provide for their one-time well-to-do families, who are now living
below the poverty line.
“I
have dropped out of school and I’m now selling plastic bags in the
city’s market to make ends meet,” eight-year-old Jamal Mohammad
told IslamOnline.net Tuesday, February 22.
Jamal’s
father was an army officer, but he has not returned home since the
US-le invasion-turned-occupation of the Arab country.
“I
have become the breadwinner of my four-member family and I have to
work hard for them. There is no time to play,” Jamal added as he was
in a tearing hurry.
Hassan
Omar, 11, is selling fuel with his younger brother at double the
regular price at fuel stations.
“Every
day, my brother and I rotationally buy fuel from stations and sell
them at sidewalks,” said Omar whose father and elder brother were
detained by US occupation troops seven months ago.
Hassan
Ali, 10, is no better than the others. He is forced to work as
mechanic’s apprentice in Al-Karama industrial district.
“My
father was shot dead by US occupation forces one year ago and I have
no other option but to work at this workshop for fixing cars,” Ali
told IOL after an exhausting 14-hour workday.
Phenomenon
The
backbreaking work has indeed put years on Jamal and his fellow
children, who have become a phenomenon in post-invasion Iraqi society,
paying the silent cost of the US-led occupation.
Thousands
of children have to labor at the crack of dawn every day to provide
for their destitute families, IOL correspondent says.
The
children can no longer enjoy themselves, leaving the playgrounds and
schools for traffic jams and workshops working as apprentices.
“Such
stressful work will make them go prematurely grey,” said Mowafak
Al-Weisi, professor of sociology in Mosul University, told IOL.
“They
further pick up disastrous habits like smoking and addiction, not to
mention some bad manners.”
Weisi
also said those children are exploited by their employers as they are
poorly paid.
“When
they grow up, they will try to vent their childhood complexes on other
children and become preoccupied with one and only thing; namely, how
to make money.”
A
report by British NGO Medact revealed in November that Iraqis will
feel the brunt of the US-British invasion for years and “maybe
generations” to come with the “alarming deterioration” of the
health care system in the war-ravaged country.
The
Iraqi health ministry warned in November that acute malnutrition among
Iraqi children has nearly doubled since the US invaded the country in
March 2003.
The
United Nations children's fund (UNICEF) had warned that the number of
children who suffer from diarrhea, Iraq's number one killer of
infants, has more than doubled under occupation.
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