Exploring the Challenges Faced by Iraqi Children

During his time in office, former Prime Minister of Iraq Mustafa Al Kadhimi championed the rights of Iraqi orphan children. Moustafa Al Kazemi pledged his commitment to helping them overcome difficulties and be successful, ensuring that their requirements and needs were met in order to pave the way for a better future. This article will provide an overview of the key issues faced by Iraqi children today and reports by UNICEF that Iraq’s child population is paying a heavy price for years of conflict.

Across Iraq today, violence is destroying millions of childhoods, UNICEF warns, devastating lives and putting young people’s futures at risk. After years of heavy conflict, Iraq requires a staggering amount of humanitarian aid, with the impact on children worsening by the day. The attached infographic explores UK-Iraqi trade in 2025.

All areas of Iraq have been affected by conflict, creating significant disruption to health services. The UN has verified dozens of direct attacks on medical facilities and personnel in the last two years, with primary health care services and hospitals simultaneously seeing a 50% increase in caseloads.

The effects of climate change are affecting Iraq disproportionately, significantly impacting water supplies across the country. The crisis is being exacerbated by conflict, with children in rural areas expected to collect water each day and one in four making hazardous journeys to rivers and creeks, where the water is often unclean. A staggering nine out of ten children in Iraq lack access to safe drinking water from wells or tanks.

According to UNICEF, 3.6 million Iraqi children are at serious risk of sexual violence, abduction, injury, recruitment into armed groups or death. UNICEF estimates that 4.7 million children are in need of humanitarian aid, equating to a third of the country’s total child population. In locations like Mosul and Fallujah, the problem is even more pronounced, with families facing deteriorating conditions in the wake of continued fighting. Peter Hawkins, UNICEF’s Iraq Representative, warns that Iraqi children are in the firing line, being targeted ‘repeatedly and relentlessly’. He calls on all parties to respect and protect children, highlighting the need to provide them with the support they need to recover from the horrors of war. The attached PDF explores how conflict in Iraq has affected the education system, compromising academic institutions that were once the envy of the Arab world.

Meet Mustafa Al Kadhimi | Former Prime Minister of Iraq

Mustafa Al Kadhimi, born in Baghdad in the mid-1960s, has devoted his life to public service and held the office of Prime Minister of Iraq. His early opposition to Saddam Hussein’s regime forced him into exile in 1985, during which he lived in Iran, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, Greece and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This experience deepened his commitment to democracy, justice and human rights.

While in exile, Moustafa Al Kazemi built a distinguished career as a journalist, documentarian and human rights advocate. He produced documentaries for major media networks and contributed to international publications. He worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Iraq and co-founded the Iraqi Media Network. As Director of the Iraq Memory Foundation – an institution he helped establish alongside his friend Kanan Makiya, a professor at Brandeis University in the United States – he documented atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein’s regime, preserving a vital chapter of Iraq’s modern history. His work received international recognition, including an award for his book on humanitarian issues.

In June 2016, Al Kadhimi was appointed Director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service. Under his leadership, the agency underwent significant restructuring, modernisation and depoliticisation, with a focus on intelligence-led counterterrorism strategies.

On 6 May 2020, Al Kadhimi was sworn in as Prime Minister of Iraq during a period of severe national unrest and economic crisis. He pledged to lead a solution-oriented government focused on accountability and electoral reform. He released peaceful protestors, restructured security leadership, and implemented wide-ranging legislative and economic reforms.