Gorilla's Guides: Lost in Land That Cannot Provide

I've written about the plight of Iraqi widows and orphans before:

Gorilla's Guides: Lost in land that cannot provide citing a reuters article:

"Three sewing machines in a dingy apartment were all Munna Abdul Adeem Ahmed could scrape together when she set up a tailoring co-op for poor widows. She soon realised it was not enough.

More than 1,000 women from the northern city of Mosul turned up looking for work on the first day. Ahmed finally stopped registering new names after the 1,200th widow signed up.

The women were mostly young, poor and desperate for work. Many lost their spouses during the wars, uprisings and civil conflict that have bedevilled Iraq over the past 25 years.

Now, a raging insurgency is adding to their numbers.

Behind the daily bloodshed and attacks that make headlines across the world, there is a growing population of widows.

Traditionally, Iraqi widows have been supported by their late husband's family or other relatives, but in a country brought to its knees by violence and war, there is now little to spare for the most vulnerable members of society.

"We don't have enough money to clothe our children," said Nawal Ayob, who lost her husband during the bombings in the first Gulf War in 1991 and has since joined Ahmed's co-op. "We have no salaries, no support. How can we survive?"

There are few reliable statistics on the number of widows, but the Ministry of Women's Affairs has recorded at least 206,000 in Iraq, outside of Kurdish provinces. There are just over half as many widowed men"

IRAQ: Widow numbers rise in wake of violence

BAGHDAD, 26 Apr 2006 (IRIN) - More than 90 women become widows each day due to continuing violence countrywide, according to government officials and non-governmental organisations devoted to women’s issues.

“Hundreds of households are losing their heads due to ongoing violence, causing a drop in living standards,” said Mayada Zuhair, a spokesperson for the Women’s Rights Association (WRA). “More women now have to search for work to support their children.”

“In addition to being widowed, these women don’t get any government support,” Mayada added, “nor are their rights respected.”

Although few reliable statistics are available on the total number of widows in Iraq, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs says that there are at least 300,000 in Baghdad alone, with another eight million throughout the country.

Full Article Here

See Also:

IRAQ: Increasing numbers of displaced families in need of assistance

BAGHDAD, 26 Apr 2006 (IRIN) - Some 25,000 people have fled their homes in the past three weeks alone, in fear of becoming the next victims of escalating sectarian violence, a government official said on Tuesday.

and:

IRAQ: Ministry copes with rising numbers of orphaned children

BAGHDAD, 18 Apr 2006 (IRIN) - Orphans in Iraq, who often lack protection, food supplies and medical assistance, require urgent assistance, according to officials at the Orphans Houses Department at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

"Orphaned children have become a very serious issue,” said department director Abeer Mahdi al-Chalabi. "We have 23 orphanages with limited capacity, capable of housing only about 1,600 orphans.”

Although there are seven orphanages in the capital, Baghdad, and another 16 in other provinces, “they aren’t enough to provide assistance to all the orphans in the country”, said al-Chalabi. She went on to point out that the increase in the number of orphans countrywide was an inevitable result of the bombings, assassinations and sectarian violence currently plaguing the country.