As part of a report this month on the Middle East and Eastern Europe, World Vision spoke to children in Iraq’s Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces. They found that 93 percent of the children surveyed are afraid their families will fall into poverty and 75 percent are worried they will not have enough to eat.
More than half a million Iraqis have contracted the coronavirus, including over 92,000 within the Kurdistan Region and 11,834 people have died across the country. Worldwide, there have been nearly 56 million confirmed cases and 1.3 million deaths.
As a second wave of the virus sweeps across the globe, people are facing increasing economic hardship and children in Iraq are experiencing emotional stress. The majority of the children surveyed favour stricter measures to protect spread of the virus.
“Children in Iraq want to see the government do more for their protection – specifically, they want the government to ensure support systems as well as abuse reporting systems are in place. They also want to be part of the solution – they would like to take part in child protection initiatives and be at the forefront of helping children,” World Vision stated in comments emailed to Rudaw English.
In Iraq, over a third of the children reported incidents of physical violence during the pandemic, especially with schools closed. “Children who go to school are able to access a safe space from their homes if they face violence at home,” the charity stated.
The report added that 80 percent of girls reported their chores within the household had significantly increased, raising a question of gender stereotypes and inequality.
Friday is World Children’s Day and the United Nations children’s organization, UNICEF, released a statement warning that children in Iraq are at risk during the pandemic.
“The number of children and adolescents who risk falling into poverty and to lose out on their rights has doubled from 1 to 2 out of every 5 children, or up to 40% all children in the country,” the statement read.
Iraq is a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which obliges the government to provide children with their basic rights.
“We are now seeing the number of girls and boys in Iraq who risk losing out on many of these rights grow at an alarming rate and as a result of the unintended consequences of the pandemic,” said Irena Vojáčková-Sollorano, the UN’s Deputy Special Representative and Resident Coordinator for Iraq.
Iraq is in a financial crisis. The World Bank Group estimates the poverty rate in Iraq will increase by seven to 14 percent in the short-term because of the fall in oil prices and the negative economic effects of the pandemic. This means that up to 5.5 million Iraqis are at risk of falling below the poverty lines.
The United Nations expects the poverty rate in Iraq will rise from 20 to 31 percent by the end of 2020, it stated in an October report in collaboration with the World Bank. Globally, after more than 20 years of falling numbers, the World Bank expects extreme poverty rates to increase this year as the world fights the coronavirus.
