Republic of Iraq

Ministry of Education

The National Committee for the Preparation of the National Report on Follow-up to The World Summit for Children

National Report on Follow-up to The

World Summit for

Children

(Summary)

February / 2000

In the name of God the Merciful

And the Benevolent

Contents Page No.

- Preface / 3
- Introduction / 6
- Review and achieved results
  1. Introduction and Background
  2. Process Established for the End-decade Review
  3. Action at the National and International Level
  4. Specified Actions for Child Survival, Protection and Development
  5. Lessons Learnt
  6. Future Actions
/ 14
14
18
27
27
29
30
  1. Appendix
/ 33

Preface

The Government of Iraq received with great pride the invitation addressed to it from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in light of the General Assembly’s resolution No. 93/54 passed on the 7th of December 1999 to prepare the "National Report on Follow-up to the World Summit for Children" which will be discussed in the Special Session due to be held by the UN General Assembly in September 2001.

For the purpose of this report the Government of Iraq has formed a national committee under the chairmanship of the Minister of Education and the membership of:

-Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.

-Ministry of Health.

-Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

-Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

- The Planning Commission.

The committee held several meetings in which:

-the measures that ought to be taken to prepare the national report were considered

-The activities and efforts made by Iraq in the implementation of the National Program signed with the UNICEF were reviewed.

- The measures taken to carry out the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) were followed up.

The committee also reviewed the documents provided by UNICEF for the preparation of the National Report. For that purpose, a sub-committee was formed for writing the report comprising:

-Mr. Talib Ibrahim Al-Iqabi - Director General of Manpower Planning Department (Planning Commission)

-Dr. Abdul Rahman Ismail Kadhim - Director General of Educational Planning (Ministry of Education).

-Mr. Qussai Ibrahim Khalil - Senior Chief Researcher (Planning Commission).

-Ms. Asima Majeed Hassaani - Director of Special Education Section (Ministry of Education).

A team from the Planning Commission/Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) was later commissioned to review and reconsider this summary report in light of the results of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey for the year 2000 (MICS 2). This survey was implemented by CSO in collaboration with line ministries and authorities and with the support of UNICEF. This team comprises:

-Mr. Adnan Shehab Hamad - Director General of CSO as Chairperson

-Mr. Mahdi Mohsan Ismail - Expert at CSO as member

-Ms. Hudda Hadawi - Director of Industrial Statistics at CSO as member

-Ms. Suham Abdul Hameed - Director of Education and Social Statistics as member.

The report examines the progress achieved in the situation of children of Iraq since the World Summit for Children was held in 1990. It also casts light on the lessons distilled during the last decade and reviews the main challenges facing the children in Iraq. The report also highlights the detrimental effects of sanctions and the comprehensive embargo on the children and other strata of Iraqi society, given the fact that the sanctions and embargo led to serious delays in implementing the development programmes that Iraq was striving to achieve within the past decade and after the Iran-Iraq war. It also surveys the effects of the deteriorating social conditions and the denial to Iraqi children of access to opportunities of progress and advancement that are normally enjoyed by the world's children.

The report, in its review of the activities, highlights its role in setting the path of future action, that Iraq will attempt to follow/implement to improve the conditions of its children and to realise significant progress in its human development. This can be made possible if full respect is awarded to Iraq's right to live in peace and to have total control/command over its financial resources. The report stresses the fact that lifting the sanctions is a necessary prerequisite to for the fulfilment of children's rights, which the world is trying to safeguard and protect through the various charters, conventions, declarations and agreements.

Introduction

The international community made serious and sincere efforts to establish guidelines and principles that aim at the service of humanity, and the establishment of secure and safe communities that enjoy welfare and stability. Yet we find that many rights are being violated through the deployment of unobjective and selective practices with the aim of singling out, interpreting and applying processes to realise selfish political aims. Those practices and other measures are subject to double standards. They have become tools for blackmail and political pressure on selected countries. All of this constitutes a violation of the most important cornerstones on which the UN charter is based. It is the respect of the principle of equality in rights and duties between countries and peoples.

What disturbs developing countries most, including Iraq in particular, is the deliberate negligence and indifference towards the main rights endorsed by the United Nations in the form of principles and declarations like self-determination, respect of sovereignty, independence, territorial and national security of countries and the right to development. Therefore, there must be strict adherence to the stipulations and articles of the international treatise, and full respect must be awarded to the organic interrelationship between the set of cultural, social and economic rights on the one hand and the set of civil and political rights on the other. Developing countries are in dire need of support to their economic and social development. It is hoped that this support will assist the developing countries in their ongoing efforts to build up the institutions that guarantee their citizens their civil and political rights. The violations of economic, social and cultural rights are just as serious as the violations of civil and political rights. As a matter of fact, the former is more serious than the latter.

Iraq has suffered from the unique situation of being subjected to full and comprehensive sanctions from 1990 and up to the present day. Human history has never witnessed such sanctions. They have resulted in scandalous encroachments on Iraqi society in the past ten years. One million innocent children died from the date of imposing the sanctions to the present day. In addition to that, more than one million have been afflicted with communicable diseases and chronic malnutrition diseases. Furthermore, more than one million Iraqis died due to the outbreak of various types of diseases and to the increase in the incidence of cancer related diseases and nervous disturbances resulting from the use of internationally banned weapons.

The lack of medicine and medical requirements in hospitals, in addition to the serious deterioration in other aspects of living conditions that affect children directly, and proliferate in all the fine details of daily life (the severe shortage in the necessary inputs and supplies for teaching, education and research activities is a point in case), have affected directly the services provided to children. The rest of the social services sector, as well as the civil service and all of the other sectors of the economy (transportation, agriculture, industry, electricity, water and sanitation) experienced serious deterioration. The country also suffered from lack of spare parts, raw materials and financial resources, all of which are badly needed for reconstruction. Environment witnessed also heavy destruction due to the use, by allied forces, of internationally banned weapons like depleted uranium. It is a known fact that the devastating effect of this weapon/material on environment and human health lasts for hundreds of years. The bombing of the infrastructure, including power generation plants and water treatment plants, has lead to the leakage of thousands of tons of poison to the air, water and soil, and subsequently to the infliction of serious damage to our environment.

This situation of Iraq, as reflected in this document, is a glaring evidence of the retrogression of the United Nations achievements, particularly the decline experienced by the development thrust. We are witnessing, now, the return to the policy of begging and charity, which is replacing the principles of rights. The right to live has become merely an opportunity to receive charity and aid within the framework of economic exploitation and political humiliation.

The Oil for Food Programme, which aims at relieving the Iraqi people, through using their own funds, has failed to secure that relief. The Iraqi citizen has not benefited from it. It has been transformed into a resource for financing the inspection and compensation committees. In addition to the inadequacy of the funds from Iraqi oil revenue allocated to the Oil for Food Program, the political indisposition has put on hold a large number of the contracts that cater for the basic-needs of the Iraqi people, thus preventing the realisation of the objectives expected from the programme.

International interest in children’s rights took tangible shape for the first time during the era of the League of Nations, which approved the Geneva Declaration on 26 Sep. 1924. The said declaration included seven principles which concentrated on the protection, helping, development, feeding, education of the child and protecting him from catastrophes and providing him with social security.

Paragraph (2) of article (25) of the International Declaration for Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations on 10 Dec. 1948, stipulated that “Mothers and Children have the right for special care and help. All children have the right to enjoy the same social protection whether born within or outside the framework of marriage”.

The General Assembly of the United Nations passed a special declaration on child’s rights in November 1959 whose preamble included ten principles covering child's rights to develop physically, mentally, ethically and socially; and also to enjoy the benefits of social security and protection. In addition to all the above the child has the right to treatment, if he were physically, mentally or socially handicapped. He also has the right to be cared for by his parents/proper parenting, the right to education and the right to protection from all types of negligence, abuse and exploitation in addition to the right of protection from all practices which lead to racial, religious or any other type of discrimination.

The two international conventions on human rights, which were issued on the 16th of December 1966, were the convention on political rights and the convention on religious rights. They covered some of the basic rights of the child, the most important of which is the right for protection from social exploitation, the right to enjoy the highest level health standards and the right for protection and care by his family and society as long as he is underage.

The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on The Rights of The Child (CRC) on 20 Nov. 1989 after efforts that lasted more than ten years. Implementation of CRC commenced on 2 Sep. 1990. This date has become an international law. The most important principles included in the convention can be summarised in the following:

  1. Each child has the genuine right to life/survival.
  2. Each child enjoys all his rights without being exposed to discrimination or desegregation.
  3. Raising of the child is the prime responsibility of parents.
  4. The protection of the child from physical and mental harm/ abuse and negligence.
  5. The handicapped children have the right to obtain treatment, education and medical care.
  6. The child has the right to enjoy the highest attainable levels of health.
  7. All children must obtain medical care with the due emphasis on preventive measures, proper up bringing, and the decreases in infant mortality.
  8. Primary education must be free and compulsory.
  9. Children must be allowed time for recreation, games and educational activities.
  10. To protect the child from economic exploitation and from employment/work.
  11. Exclusion of children under-fifteen in warfare and to provide them with special protection during armed conflicts.

The Republic of Iraq ratified the Convention according to law (3) of 1994 of 7/3/1994. Iraq’s reservation was restricted to the first article of para. (14) of the convention. The ratification documents were lodged with the United Nations General Secretariat on 15/6/1994. Iraq also joined the second amendment proposed by the signatories of the convention concerning article (2) of para (43) regarding increasing members of the Child Rights Committee from (10) to (18) as per law No. (5) of 2000.

Iraqi Civil law defines child as "any person who is under the age of eighteen. The law for juvenile care No. (76) of 1983 has specified in detail the age of the child. The terms used to designate children at the various age groupings are as follows:

  1. The child is regarded as minor if he is older than nine and younger than eighteen years old.
  2. The child is regarded as a juvenile if he is older than nine years and younger than eleven.
  3. The juvenile is regarded as a boy if he is older them nine years and younger then fifteen.
  4. The juvenile is regarded as an adolescent if is older than fifteen years and younger than eighteen.

Iraqi legislation has not used the term "child", but rather the expressions of minor, juvenile or boy. This does not affect the validity of these legislations but reflects legal precision, bearing in mind that the age of consent is specified, in the Iraqi legislation, as (18)-which agrees totally with the convention.

The Government of Iraq employed all possible means and measures at all legislative, executive and judicial levels to ensure proper care and protection of the child, to guarantee the cohesiveness of the family and to enhance its stability, and to take part in the resolving family problems and disputes that could lead to the non-fulfilment the child's rights stated in the convention. At the official level, the state has set procedures and criteria for the medical establishments and centres, houses for handicapped children and juveniles, and all other establishments and institutions concerned with children's welfare, that ensures the safe and healthy development of children in the best possible manner. Accordingly, the Government of Iraq provided these activities with proper work frameworks, and allocated in the budget sufficient sums to cover the expenses of their conduct. The most important evidence of Iraq's commitment to child's right to survival, protection and development is crystallised in the National Plan for Children up to2000. The establishment of an information unit-"Mother and child Unit (MCU)"- at the Central Organisation of Statistics (CSO) was the starting point in the process of this plan's preparation. This unit was assigned the task of formulating indicators on mother and child with the support of UNICEF. After Iraq’s ratification of the CRC, the mother and child unit assumed the responsibility of preparing the National Plans with the co-operation and co-ordination of the concerned parties, as well as the task of monitoring and following-up the implementation of mid-decade goals.

Efforts to execute the plan started with the Conference on Children held between 11 and 13 May 1993. The parties that took part in preparing for the conference were the CSO, Child Welfare Commission, and non-governmental organisations with the co-operation of the UNICEF. A number of papers were discussed in this conference.

CSO was commissioned with the preparation of the National Plan for children as stipulated in the Master Plan of Operations signed between the Republic of Iraq and UNICEF. This plan was prepared in accordance with findings and recommendations of the working papers referred to earlier on the one hand, and with the mid-decade and end-decade goals on the other. As a result, the plan turned out to be comprehensive, and thus provided working guidelines for the implementation of CRC.

The plan after approval included three main axes/pivots:

-The current situation.

- Strategies and objectives.

-Activities and means of implementation.

The sections of the plan were:

-Health and children.

-Teaching and education.

-Environment and children.

-Culture and information.

-Social welfare.

-The General Federation of Iraqi Women (GFIW).

For implementation purposes, the plan was divided to three stages:

Stage one – stage of mid-decade 1995.

Stage two – covers the period from 1995 to 1997.

Stage three – covers the period from 1997 to 2000.

The content of the plan highlighted key trends in areas of concern regarding the rights of survival, protection and development (child and maternal health and nutrition, the elimination of malnutrition, etc.). It also pointed out that the unjust sanctions imposed on the country and its adverse effects on children represent the most important impediment that confronts the realisation of the rights of Iraqi children.