baghdad was a beautiful city with modern infrastructure, busy thoroughfares and leafy suburbs. “there is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people” and destroying an entire country for oil. one million murdered, 5 million dispossessed. this is what we’ve done…
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“For 12-year-old Abbas Mohammed and his family, it is used plastic bottles and empty aluminum cans that keep them alive. Mohammed spends his school summer holidays picking through a Baghdad garbage dump so he can sell the discarded items and help support his family.
As Iraq battles to emerge from the ruins of war, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF estimates nearly a quarter of Iraq’s children — over three million youngsters, the most vulnerable group in society — scrape by on an income of less than $2.20 a day. One child in nine is working.
A recent International Labor Organization report listing dangerous jobs in which children are engaged across the world mentioned collecting garbage as one of the activities in which minors risked suffering violence and injury.
Mohammed wears a glove over his left hand to protect himself from sharp objects in the dump and his mother says she fears he could catch a disease. But she says she needs him to work.” More here.
