IRAQI CHILDREN

“Iraqi children are paying far too high a price,” said Roger Wright, UNICEF’s Special Representative for Iraq¹.

See this page for some of the things we are doing to the next generation...

The information below is from UNICEF's report in 2007 - mild crimes, as you might expect from UNICEF reporting. (For stronger stuff, see the link above).

• Only 28 per cent of Iraq’s 17 year olds sat their final exams in summer, and only 40 per cent of those sitting exams achieved a passing grade (in south and central Iraq).
• Many of 220,000 displaced children of primary school age had their education interrupted, adding to the estimated 760,000 children (17%) already out of primary school in 2006.
• Children in remote and hard-to-reach areas were frequently cut off from health outreach services.
• Only 20 per cent outside Baghdad had working sewerage in their community, and access to safe water remains a serious issue.
• An average 25,000 children per month were displaced by violence or intimidation, their families seeking shelter in other parts of Iraq. By the end of the year, approximately 75,000 children had resorted to living in camps or temporary shelters (25% of those newly-displaced since the Samarra shrine bombing in February 2006).
• Hundreds of children lost their lives or were injured by violence and many more had their main family wage-earner kidnapped or killed.
• Approximately 1,350 children were detained by military and police authorities, many for alleged security violations.

1. UNICEF: Little Respite for Iraq’s Children in 2007