Monday, May 15, 2006. 8:13pm (AEST)
Iraqi children suffering 'alarming' malnutrition: survey
Malnutrition among Iraqi children has reached alarming levels, according to a UN-backed government survey showing people are struggling to cope three years after US-forces overthrew Saddam Hussein.
The report on food security and vulnerability in Iraq said almost one child in every 10 aged between six months and five years, suffered acute malnourishment.
"Children are... major victims of food insecurity," it said, describing the situation as "alarming".
A total of four million Iraqis, roughly 15 per cent of the population, were in dire need of humanitarian aid including food, up from 11 per cent in a 2003 report, the survey of more than 20,000 Iraqi households found.
Saddam's 35-year rule was marked by ruinous wars - first against Iran in 1980-88 and then against US-led forces in 1991 and again in 2003 - as well as crippling economic sanctions in the 1990s.
The aftermath of the US-led invasion has seen widespread violence, with militant and sectarian attacks and killings preventing a return to normal life for many Iraqis and hindering humanitarian aid efforts.
"Decades of conflict and economic sanctions have had serious effects on Iraqis," the report said.
"Their consequences have been rising unemployment, illiteracy and, for some families, the loss of wage earners."
The survey was conducted by the ministries of planning and health supported by the UN World Food Program and the UN Children's Fund UNICEF.
David Singh, a spokesman for UNICEF's Iraq Support Centre in neighbouring Jordan, said the number of acutely malnourished children had more than doubled, to 9 per cent in 2005 from 4 per cent in 2002, the last year of Saddam's rule.
Many children in homes lacking sufficient food suffered from chronic malnutrition, the UN agency added.
"This can irreversibly hamper the young child's optimal mental/cognitive development, not just their physical development," Roger Wright, UNICEF's special representative for Iraq, said in its statement.
Mr Singh told Reuters: "Until there is a period of relative stability in Iraq we are going to continue to face these kinds of problems".
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/20 ... 639071.htm
Iraqi children suffering 'alarming' malnutrition: survey
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Iraqi children suffering 'alarming' malnutrition: survey
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. B. Franklin
Add this into the mix of winning hearts and minds...
Iraqi Farmers Aren't Celebrating World Food Day - Pay Monsanto, or starve
As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations -- which can include seeds the Iraqis themselves developed over hundreds of years. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve.
When the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) celebrated biodiversity on World Food Day on October 16, Iraqi farmers were mourning its loss.
A new report [1] by GRAIN and Focus on the Global South has found that new legislation in Iraq has been carefully put in place by the US that prevents farmers from saving their seeds and effectively hands over the seed market to transnational corporations. This is a disastrous turn of events for Iraqi farmers, biodiversity and the country's food security. While political sovereignty remains an illusion, food sovereignty for the Iraqi people has been made near impossible by these new regulations.
"The US has been imposing patents on life around the world through trade deals. In this case, they invaded the country first, then imposed their patents. This is both immoral and unacceptable", said Shalini Bhutani, one of the report's authors.
The new law in question [2] heralds the entry into Iraqi law of patents on life forms - this first one affecting plants and seeds. This law fits in neatly into the US vision of Iraqi agriculture in the future - that of an industrial agricultural system dependent on large corporations providing inputs and seeds.
In 2002, FAO estimated that 97 percent of Iraqi farmers used saved seed from their own stocks from last year's harvest or purchased from local markets. When the new law - on plant variety protection (PVP) - is put into effect, seed saving will be illegal and the market will only offer proprietary "PVP-protected" planting material "invented" by transnational agribusiness corporations. The new law totally ignores all the contributions Iraqi farmers have made to development of important crops like wheat, barley, date and pulses. Its consequences are the loss of farmers' freedoms and a grave threat to food sovereignty in Iraq. In this way, the US has declared a new war against the Iraqi farmer.
"If the FAO is celebrating 'Biodiversity for Food Security' this year, it needs to demonstrate some real commitment", says Henk Hobbelink of GRAIN, pointing out that the FAO has recently been cosying up with industry and offering support for genetic engineering [3]. "Most importantly, the FAO must recognise that biodiversity-rich farming and industry-led agriculture are worlds apart, and that industrial agriculture is one of the leading causes of the catastrophic decline in agricultural biodiversity that we have witnessed in recent decades. The FAO cannot hope to embrace biodiversity while holding industry's hand", he added.
Iraqi Farmers Aren't Celebrating World Food Day - Pay Monsanto, or starve
As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations -- which can include seeds the Iraqis themselves developed over hundreds of years. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve.
When the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) celebrated biodiversity on World Food Day on October 16, Iraqi farmers were mourning its loss.
A new report [1] by GRAIN and Focus on the Global South has found that new legislation in Iraq has been carefully put in place by the US that prevents farmers from saving their seeds and effectively hands over the seed market to transnational corporations. This is a disastrous turn of events for Iraqi farmers, biodiversity and the country's food security. While political sovereignty remains an illusion, food sovereignty for the Iraqi people has been made near impossible by these new regulations.
"The US has been imposing patents on life around the world through trade deals. In this case, they invaded the country first, then imposed their patents. This is both immoral and unacceptable", said Shalini Bhutani, one of the report's authors.
The new law in question [2] heralds the entry into Iraqi law of patents on life forms - this first one affecting plants and seeds. This law fits in neatly into the US vision of Iraqi agriculture in the future - that of an industrial agricultural system dependent on large corporations providing inputs and seeds.
In 2002, FAO estimated that 97 percent of Iraqi farmers used saved seed from their own stocks from last year's harvest or purchased from local markets. When the new law - on plant variety protection (PVP) - is put into effect, seed saving will be illegal and the market will only offer proprietary "PVP-protected" planting material "invented" by transnational agribusiness corporations. The new law totally ignores all the contributions Iraqi farmers have made to development of important crops like wheat, barley, date and pulses. Its consequences are the loss of farmers' freedoms and a grave threat to food sovereignty in Iraq. In this way, the US has declared a new war against the Iraqi farmer.
"If the FAO is celebrating 'Biodiversity for Food Security' this year, it needs to demonstrate some real commitment", says Henk Hobbelink of GRAIN, pointing out that the FAO has recently been cosying up with industry and offering support for genetic engineering [3]. "Most importantly, the FAO must recognise that biodiversity-rich farming and industry-led agriculture are worlds apart, and that industrial agriculture is one of the leading causes of the catastrophic decline in agricultural biodiversity that we have witnessed in recent decades. The FAO cannot hope to embrace biodiversity while holding industry's hand", he added.
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. B. Franklin
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Shirleypal
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To be fair, UNICEF attributed 500,000 baby deaths due to the sanctions against Iraq in the 90's.
Link
Iraqi child death rates soar
BBC Online, World: Middle East, Thursday, August 12, 1999 Published at 13:39 GMT 14:39 UK
Hospitals say they are short of even the most basic medicines
Iraqi children under five are dying at more than twice the rate they were 10 years ago according to a report from Unicef, the United Nations' children's fund. The report compiled in conjunction with the World Health Organisation and the Iraqi Government is the first survey of child and maternal mortality in Iraq to be carried since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. It shows a dramatic rise in child mortality rates in central and southern Iraq - areas controlled by the Baghdad government. Unicef estimates that over the last 10 years at least half a million child deaths could have been prevented.
Preventable deaths
Iraqi doctors have warned that many more children will die of preventable diseases unless sanctions against the country are lifted. Unicef says that other factors, such as Baghdad's delay in distributing the aid supplies it is allowed to import under a food-for-oil deal, have contributed to the problems. To make matters worse, the social and physical infrastructure of Iraq is crumbling. The education system has been run down and figures show that children of educated mothers have a better chance of survival.
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