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| Iraq |
| No rights for children of Iraq's Qaeda militants |
| 2010-09-22 |
| [Al Arabiya] Amid rampant violence and anarchy, offspring of al-Qaeda members in Iraq suffer from not having any legal records or documentation, the Washington Post reports. Plagued with no birth certificates, passports or national identifications cards, the children will not be able to go to school or hold a government job. "It's dangerous because in the future they might hurt the society that hurt them," said Ahmed Jassim, director of the Nour Foundation, a nongovernmental organization working to improve the lives of the militants' children in the northeastern Iraqi province of Diyala. When Qaeda was in control The children are products of a time when al-Qaeda was in control of large swaths of the country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. During that period the legal systems broke down, institutions could not function or provide any services, and insurgency raged in a reaction to the invasion. Some Sunni Muslim communities gave sanctuary to the men, Iraqi or foreign Arabs, believing that they would help rid them of the U.S. army. But al-Qaeda in Iraq quickly grew brutal, overpowered other Iraqi insurgent groups, declared an Islamic state and enforced a severe form of Islamic law, making communities to slowly turn against the group. Many of the al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq were jailed or killed, or went into a hiding. The undocumented children they left behind are now between 1 and 4 years old. Forced marriages Jassim has identified at least 125 families in Diyala province alone with children from forced marriages. Many of the women don't know the real identities of their absent husbands and fear that if they fight for the rights of their children, they and the men of their families will be scorned or jailed for a connection to the militants organization. Officials from the Interior Ministry whose task is to help victims of the Iraq war said the women are not considered as rape victims. "Helping them could encourage al-Qaeda in Iraq," said Fadhil al-Shweilli, a ministry official who deals with victims of war. Naheda Zaid Manhal, a parliament member from the largely Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, said she will fight on behalf of the children once the government is formed. Legal experts said the easiest solution would be to give the children to orphanages or forge their birth certificates with the name of a fake father. Um Zahra A lady who introduced herself as Um Zahra (mother of Zahra) to Washington Post is a mother to a toddler, Zahra, who is a product of a forced marriage. Recalling the account of how she became a mother, Um Zahra said in one night in 2008, six militants dashed into her house in Baqubah. A man who identified himself only as Abu Zahra (father of Zahra), and others told Um Zahra's brother he had three choices: join them, be killed or give them his mother and his younger sister, then a striking 18-year-old with dark eyes. The women were forced to accept and the marriages were performed by one of the armed men, though no marriage contract was signed. Abu Zahra then forced the teenager to have sex, and for the next three months, he and the others would arrive late at night, the women said. They always left before sunrise. Umm Zahra's husband never gave his real name, the family said. Umm Zahra says she never saw the face of the man who stole her virginity. "I hate him. He took the dearest thing in a woman's life," she said. By the time she gave birth, the baby's father had been gone for months, having disappeared without a trace. They told their new neighbors that the baby was an orphan they had taken into their home. But Umm Zahra knows the neighbors whisper about her and wonder why Zahra calls her "Mama.'' Umm Zahra said she will not go to court to pursue the rights of her child, now 11/2 years old fearing that people will fault her for the marriage and the child it resulted. "These children are guilty of nothing," she said. The family can't afford the $100 to $300 for a forged birth certificate with a fake father's name. Since the last March election in Iraq, the country is stricken with a political stalemate, with no new government in charge of the country. Many of the women are Sunni Arabs and worry that a Shiite-led government would lack sympathy and consider them accomplices in the crimes of their missing husbands. |
| Posted by:Fred |