In Our Name, Iraqi Children Bear the Costs of War

[kpete]

Published on Thursday, March 5, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Iraqi Children Bear the Costs of War

by César Chelala

The great number of Iraqi children affected with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one of the saddest, and least known, legacies of the Iraq war. That a new clinic for their treatment opened last August in Baghdad is the first of its kind says a lot about how this problem is being addressed. Until now, hundreds of children suffering from PTSD have been treated by Dr. Haider Maliki at the Central Pediatric Teaching Hospital in Baghdad. Hundreds of thousands remain untreated.

......................

UNICEF states that almost two million children have been displaced from their homes since the last war began. "Iraqi children, already casualties of a quarter of a century of conflict and deprivation, are being caught up in a rapidly worsening humanitarian tragedy, "according to that organization. "Iraqi children are paying far too high a price," stated Roger Wright, UNICEF's Special Representative for Iraq in December of 2007.

Information collected by UNICEF from different sources support his assertion. By the end of 2007, approximately 75,000 children had resorted to living in camps or temporary shelters. Many of the 220,000 displaced children of primary school age had their education interrupted. This is in addition to the estimated 760,000 children already out of primary school in 2006. Hundreds of children held in prison -some as young as nine-years-old- are kept in overcrowded cells and are frequent targets of sexual abuse by prison guards, according to information from current and former child prisoners.

Both the United States and Great Britain are recognized as Iraq's occupying powers, and as such are bound by the Hague and Geneva Conventions that demand that they be responsible not only for maintaining order, but also for responding to the medical needs of the population. Children's mental health is among the most urgent of those needs.

more at:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/05-0

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Orwellian_Ghost]

2. K&R

And still the Iraqi people suffer the consequences of the sanctions of the Clinton years as well as this horror.

[G_j]

3. K&R

[slipslidingaway]

4. K&R n/t

[Hissyspit]

5. Anyone with half a brain who watched ShockAndAwe (TM) knew there would be children with PTSD.

But our wondrous MSM assholes watched it all with cheerleading glee.

We rained fire and destruction down on a city full of children. Even if we didn't hit any children directly, and we did, we were raining fire and destruction down on their city.

But, hey! We "won" the war! We're No. 1!

[ConcernedCanuk]

6. Guess where the next generation of terrorists that want to harm the USA come from

.
.
.

These kids will grow up ya know . . .

Some just might remember who killed their mother/father/brother/sister/friend . . .

"They'll be back"

count on it

[Mnemosyne]

7. .

:cry:

[Zhade]

8. So, does anyone give a fuck about all those dead Iraqis anymore?

Anyone?