Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) released its recent report on the unfortunate situation in Iraq regarding the overall conditions of the population.
The Commission announced that five million children are orphaned in Iraq, about five percent of the total orphans in the world.
The report also indicated that there were one million child laborers, 45,000 children without identification documents, including children with ISIS-affiliated parents, and 4.5 million children whose families are below the poverty line.
IHCHR received 5,000 domestic violence complaints, according to the report.
IHCHR official Ali al-Bayati told Asharq Al-Awsat that the report based its number on various indicators from international and local organizations.
The number of orphans was based on UNICEF figures. The rest of the indicators were based on the statistics of the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and UN agencies or complaints received by the Commission.
The Commission also recorded a poverty rate of 25 percent of the total population, including the Kurdistan Region, and an unemployment rate of nearly 14 percent. In addition, 596 civilians were killed as a result of the violence.
Since 2014, 8,000 persons have been reported missing in Iraq. The Commission indicated that the Iraqi authorities did not conduct the necessary investigations to reveal their fate or help their families.
The Commission also reported the arrest of ten activists and journalists and received 900 complaints related to torture and ill-treatment in prisons without the authorities conducting an investigation.
The country needs 3.5 million housing units to overcome its housing crisis and 8,000 schools to adequately address students' needs, and the overall dropout rate from learning institutions was 73 percent in 2021.
In addition, there are about 4000 slums inhabited by about half a million families, most of which are concentrated in Baghdad.
In 2021, 175 people died due to the COVID-19 hospital fires in Baghdad and Nasiriyah, the report added.
There have also been 2,152 reported fatalities in traffic accidents during the same period, given the lack of developed roads across Iraq and the increasingly unplanned import of cars which significantly increased traffic accidents.
