What War Brings: orphans
Yes, every war and every occupation produces orphans. In more recent times, this is especially true because civilians are so impacted by the wars and the occupations. In Iraq, the number of orphans from the US invasion and occupation are staggering. Keep in mind one thing though: in Iraq, an orphan might be a child who lost both parents, or they might have lost their father only. The father is the family’s breadwinner. An orphan in Iraq may still have a mother, but also may be facing serious hunger. I believe the same is true in Afghanistan, but I could not confirm this.
And like all the other horrific outcomes of these wars and occupations, this reality is pretty much ignored in the US.
Some of the orphans are absolutely darling. Here is the photo of one who is four years old – which means she spent her entire life under US occupation in Iraq – and occupation which took the lives of both of her parents.
Photo: Mariam Ammar, 4-years-old, joins other mainly Sunni and Shiite Muslim orphans during a reconciliation gathering between orphans from the Shiite Kadhimiyah district on the west bank of the Tigris River, and the orphans from the Adhamiyah Sunni district, opposite, on the east side of the river which run through the center of Baghdad on May 03, 2009. Mariam's parents were killed when she was 7-months-old. Some 40 orphan boys and girls gathered receiving gifts by an organization working to break down sectarian barriers which came to a head in 2006 when Iraqis were being killed depending on their creed and in other sectarian violence. All these children lost their parents in such killings.
There were lots of other photos of this particular event. There are more photos of that event posted on my blog Faces of Grief under May 2009
In January 2008, the Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs issued a report on the status of orphans in Iraq. Their English is not perfect, but they get the information across.
4.5 millon orphans in Iraq, a tragic situation
This report was declare that in Iraq now 4.5 millions Iraqi orphans with 500 000 living in streets without any home or family care about thier, as well as there are only 459 orphans in governmental houses of orphans. The dramatic facts in this report also, there are 800 Iraqi orphans in American Iraqi prisons until January 2008 (700 orphans in Iraqi prisons and 100 another orphans in American prisons).
In 2007, there was some corporate media attention paid to the orphans of Iraq – a select group of them. They were found by US soldiers in deplorable conditions. The orphans were lying on the floor in their own filth, and they were all special needs children. This caused a scandal in Iraq.
The children had been badly neglected, and maybe abused.
This finding, and the follow up reports, did not inspire a deeper look at the orphans of Iraq by the US corporate media. There was an earlier report on an orphanage in Baghdad, from 2006. Three young girls were home when their home was broken into and their parents shot dead. They are now in an orphanage, and they are attending school. The only thing they were really lacking was love and attention from a caring adult.
Needed: Love for a Baghdad orphanage
"We lived with my uncle for about a year, and then came here."
"Why? Why did you have to come here?" I asked. I hated asking the question, but it bothered me that her uncle would send the girls to live in an orphanage. I wanted to know how Marwa rationalized it. She was very matter of fact. "He couldn't afford to keep us, so he brought us here."
The orphanage was surprisingly clean and well organized. The girls all looked healthy and reasonably well cared for. Their lives were very regimented.
A report by Islam Online said that 600,000 Iraqi orphans were living on the streets in 2008. They reported that only 700 children were living in the 18 orphanages in Iraq. Here is the story of one orphan who lives, and works, in the streets.
Iraq Orphans Neglected, Abused
Hamed Abdel-Sattar, 9, has to spend hours at the streets moving from one traffic light to another trying to make a living for him and his 7-year-old sister. "My father was killed during the invasion and my mother seven months later in a suicide attack," he said. "We don’t know where our relatives are and had to steel to get enough money to buy candies and sell them today," he added. "I know what I did is wrong but we had to eat. I think that God will forgive me," reasons the nine-year-old.
This particular child had run away from an orphanage, because he suffered from aggressions from the employees at the orphanage. He felt the streets were better than the orphanage. It is reported by Al Jazeera (video below) that the orphanages are very under funded.
Al Jazeera did another report on an orphan in Afghanistan, but say in their report that the Taliban are the ones most responsible for civilian deaths. That video is below in the comments also.
Afghanistan is estimated to have 1.6 million orphans, of which Americans have little awareness of, per this report.
The orphans of Afghanistan – who are they? They don’t know the date of their birth, have no birth certificate, have lost every thread of any family network, and celebrate no holidays. Some of them were forced to watch as their parents, relatives, or friends were manhandled, raped, or killed. These children are unprotected and are exploited for the goals of diverse political and religious groups – first as Koran pupils and later sometimes as fighters. We are presenting these children, because my, your, our responsibility is to look, understand, and think about them, because these fates ultimately also have consequences for our lives.
RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is a political and social organization that are struggling for peace and women’s rights in Afghanistan. They are also working to help children, educate girls, and provide for some of the orphans of Afghanistan.
Slideshow of RAWA Orphanages
One of RAWA's projects in social sector is to help orphan children and take care of them. In 1986 Meena, the founding leader of RAWA, established an orphanage in Quetta of Pakistan. Since then RAWA has established many orphanages in Pakistan and inside Afghanistan to take care of ill-fated Afghan orphans, who are great in number due to 2 decades of war.
I could not find any recent reports on the orphans of Afghanistan outside of RAWA and some individual efforts to help the orphans. My local Vets for Peace group did a lot of fund raising for an Afghan orphanage since 2001. They replaced the kitchen, bathrooms and the roof of the building and bought other needed supplies. This project had to be abandoned, due to the fact that the orphanage came under the control of the Afghan government and they would not accept outside donations. (This group is now working on fund raising for Iraqi widows, so the good efforts continue.)
It seems the traditional media have no interest in covering the orphans of Afghanistan. They pretty much followed this pattern in Iraq too, with the exception of stories about US troops helping the Iraqi orphans. I am glad US troops what to help Iraqi orphans, but it seems to me that other groups helping orphans are also newsworthy. (And I suspect the reason the US corporate news covers the US troops doing nice things is to keep the myth of the beneficial nature of American war-making going. Having a war makes a lot of money for ABCNNBCBS and FAUX news. Of course, the ‘beneficial nature’ is just a massive pact of lies, like the WMDs in Iraq shit.) The only large news outlet to cover orphans in Iraq and Afghanistan is Al Jazeera. You can watch them on line at www.livestation.com. Download the player and you have TV on your computer.
SOME WAYS YOU CAN HELP THE ORPHANS OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
UNICEF supports orphans in Iraq, along with young children and their mothers
Or you can call them directly at 1-800-4-UNICEF.
Or write them at:
U.S. Fund for UNICEF
333 E. 38th St., 6th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10016
Another charity for Iraqi orphans is Iraqi Orphan Foundation which is based in London.
And in Afghanistan....... RAWA:
Funds should be sent through checks payable to "IHC/Afghan Women's Mission" to the following address:
The Afghan Women's Mission
P.O. Box 40846
Pasadena, CA 91114-7846
USA
For making online donations through credit card visit the web site of the Afghan Women's Mission at http://afghanwomensmission.org. We would like to thank you from the bottom of our sorrowful heart for your support and sympathies with your Afghan sisters.
If you support the continued occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Pakistan, then you support WHAT WAR BRINGS: orphans.