WP,pg1: Iraqi Youth Face Lasting Scars of War: Psychological Impact on Children Is Immense

[DeepModem Mom]

Iraqi Youth Face Lasting Scars of War
Conflict's Psychological Impact on Children Is Immense, Experts Say
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 26, 2007; A01


Iraqi girls eye a U.S. soldier who was canvassing their Baghdad neighborhood. Many Iraqi children have been exposed to significant trauma. (By Chris Hondros -- Getty Images)

BAGHDAD -- Marwa Hussein watched as gunmen stormed into her home and executed her parents. Afterward, her uncle brought her to the Alwiya Orphanage, a high-walled compound nestled in central Baghdad with a concrete yard for a playground. That was more than two years ago, and for 13-year-old Marwa, shy and thin with walnut-colored eyes and long brown hair, the memory of her parents' last moments is always with her. "They were killed," she said, her voice trailing away as she sat on her narrow bed with pink sheets. Tears started to slide down her face. As social worker Maysoon Tahsin comforted her, other orphans in the room, where 12 girls sleep, watched solemnly.

Iraq's conflict is exacting an immense and largely unnoticed psychological toll on children and youth that will have long-term consequences, said social workers, psychiatrists, teachers and aid workers in interviews across Baghdad and in neighboring Jordan.

"With our limited resources, the societal impact is going to be very bad," predicted Haider Abdul Muhsin, one of the country's few child psychiatrists. "This generation will become a very violent generation, much worse than during Saddam Hussein's regime."

Since the U.S.-led invasion, 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes, half of them children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. Many are being killed inside their sanctuaries -- at playgrounds, on soccer fields and in schools. Criminals are routinely kidnapping children for ransom as lawlessness goes unchecked. Violence has orphaned tens of thousands....

***

Today, toy weapons are among the best-selling items in local markets, and kids play among armored vehicles on streets where pickup trucks filled with masked gunmen are a common sight. On a recent day, a group of children was playing near a camouflage-colored Iraqi Humvee parked in Baghdad's upscale Karrada neighborhood. One boy clutched a thick stick and placed it on his right shoulder, as if he were handling a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. He aimed it at cars passing by, pretending to blow them up. Two soldiers pointed at the children and laughed....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501952_pf.html

[Time for change]

1. This is something our corporate media should talk a lot more about

[msongs]

2. the us military doesnt give a damn about this nt