People's Democracy

Iraq: Sanctions Cripple Children’s Future

THE criminal US-imposed sanctions against Iraq, in the name of the UN, are playing havoc with the future of Iraqi children as well, by severely hitting the country’s educational system. Over one million Iraqi students, 20 per cent of the total number who were expected to attend schools, failed to enroll in 1998, an education ministry communiqué said recently.

In addition, about 200,000 children, most of whom were primary and secondary students, have dropped out of the system.

UN sanctions, that have severely hit the incomes of the Iraqi people, have been the main cause behind the two problems of non-enrolment and drop-out. It will be recalled that before these sanctions were imposed, the government of Iraq used to provide to the students all the requirements of education - like books, stationery, scientific equipment, and so on.

The sanctions have brought about an acute shortage of stationery in the country. For example, the primary and secondary schools need a total of 75 million notebooks for their students, while only 25 million are available.

In the fourth phase of the oil-for-food programme, Iraq was allowed to export oil worth $5.2 billion, out of which $38 million were allocated for the education sector. This is much below the $500 million Iraq used to spend on education every year before the sanctions. This means less than two dollars per student per month, the communiqué said.

The amount allocated for education does not include the cost of rebuilding the more than 3,100 schools that were destroyed during the gulf war, a task for which the government simply does not have money.

At the same time, though the population of Iraq has increased, no new schools have been built, which has led to an acute overcrowding in the existing schools.

The number of teaching staff is dropping at an average rate of 10 per cent per year, as the monthly salary of a primary school teacher, for instance, is 3,500 Iraqi dinars, or less than $3.

At the same time, illiteracy is increasing by about five per cent per year, though the country was awarded an international trophy before the sanctions for its efforts at eradicating illiteracy. It is widely believed that even if the UN sanctions are lifted one day, its impact will persist for the many generations to come.     

(People’s Democracy, January 17, 1999)