Children Pick Their Christmas Toys

*Inter Press Service*
Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily

*FALLUJAH, Dec 25 (IPS) - Ahmed Ghazi has little reason to stock
Christmas toys at his shop in Fallujah. He knows what children want
these days.*

"It is best for us to import toys such as guns and tanks because they
are most saleable in Iraq to little boys," Ghazi told IPS. "Children try
to imitate what they see out of their windows."

And there are particular imports for girls, too, he said. "Girls prefer
crying dolls to others that dance or play music and songs."

As children in the United States and around the world celebrate
Christmas, and prepare to celebrate the New Year, children in Iraq
occupy a quite different world, with toys to match.

Social researcher Nuha Khalil from the Iraqi Institute for Childhood
Development in Baghdad told IPS that young girls are now expressing
their repressed sadness often by playing the role of a mother who takes
care of her small daughter.

"Looking around, they only see gatherings of mourning ladies who lost
their beloved ones," said Khalil. "Our job of comforting these little
girls and remedying the damage within them is next to impossible."

Hundreds of thousands of children have faced trauma of some sort. And
for others, the lack of a normal life is trauma enough.

Just a lack of entertainment is developing into a serious problem. There
are only 10 cinemas in Baghdad, and two dilapidated public parks. These
are no longer safe for children.

Children do not go out much to play, and they are not sure of home any
more. The United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 Iraqis are
fleeing the country every month. The number of Iraqis living in other
Arab countries is now more than 1.8 million. There are in addition more
than 1.6 million internally displaced people within Iraq.

The group Refugees International says that the increasing number of
people fleeing Iraq means that this refugee crisis might soon overtake
that in Darfur. And children suffer most from leaving, and they suffer
most where they go.

"Homeless children are inclined to be rough, and isolated from their new
neighbourhood and new school colleagues," Hayam al-Ukaili, a primary
school headmistress in Fallujah told IPS. "They do not mix in with their
new atmosphere as they should. It is as if they feel it is imposed upon
them, and they simply reject it."

Teachers and social workers say children have begun to nurse a strong
hatred of the United States. No more is the United States the image of a
good life.

"Children have lost hope in the United States and the Iraqi government
after the situation has only worsened every day," Abdul Wahid Nathum,
researcher for an Iraqi NGO which assists children told IPS in Baghdad
(he did not want the organisation to be named).

"Their understanding of the ongoing events is incredible," he said. "It
is probably because the elder members of the family keep talking
politics and watching news. Talking to a 12-year-old child, one would be
surprised by the huge amount of news inside his head, which is not right."

"Children are the most affected by the tragic events," Dr. Khalil
al-Kubaissi, a psychotherapist in Fallujah told IPS. "Their fragile
personalities cannot face the loss of a parent or the family house along
with all the horror that surrounds them. The result is catastrophic, and
Iraqi children are in serious danger of lapsing into loneliness or
violence."

The difficulties of children have become particularly noticeable this
year. "The only things they have on their minds are guns, bullets, death
and a fear of the U.S. occupation," Maruan Abdullah, spokesman for the
Association of Psychologists of Iraq told reporters at the launch of a
study in February this year.

The report warned that "children in Iraq are seriously suffering
psychologically with all the insecurity, especially with the fear of
kidnapping and explosions."

The API surveyed more than 1,000 children throughout Iraq over a
four-month period and found that "92 percent of the children examined
were found to have learning impediments, largely attributable to the
current climate of fear and insecurity."

With nearly half of Iraq's population under 18 years of age, the
devastating impact of the violent and chaotic occupation is that much
greater. Three wars since 1980, a refugee crisis of staggering
proportions, loss of family members, suicide attacks, car bombs and the
constant threat of home raids by occupation soldiers or death squads
have meant that young Iraqis are shattered physically and mentally.

As early as April 2003, the United Nations Children's Fund had estimated
that half a million Iraqi children had been traumatized by the U.S.-led
invasion. The situation has degenerated drastically since then.

A report issued by Iraq's Ministry of Education earlier this year found
that 64 children had been killed and 57 wounded in 417 attacks on
schools within just a four-month period. In all 47 children were
kidnapped on their way to or from school over the period.