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UNICEF / IRAQ REPORT
STORY: UNICEF / IRAQ REPORT
TRT: 02:30
SOURCE: UNIFEED-UNTV / UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 30 JUNE 2016, NEW YORK CITY / MAY 2016, NORTHERN IRAQ
1. Wide shot, camp
2. Wide shot, children playing in the camp
3. Close up, desert flower with children in background
4. Wide shot, children playing
5. Wide shot, young girl carrying a baby
30 JUNE 2016, NEW YORK CITY
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Justin Forsyth, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director:
“It‘s the fighting and the escalations of the fighting that really affect the children. I’ve been in Iraq in the last few years a couple of times and you meet moms and dads, as I did in one displaced people’s camp, and they told me how one armed group, ISIL, took their two children, one was six and one was nine, and they slit their throats in front of them. Another mother told me how her 14-year-old boy was shot in the head standing next to her. But interestingly they allowed the parents to live, but they killed the children. And I think that’s a shocking thing that we are hearing from our staff on the ground, is how children are being particularly targeted. And they are also being displaced by the fighting as it spreads in different parts of Iraq.”
UNICEF - MAY 2016, NORTHERN IRAQ
7. Wide shot, children behind clothes line
8. Wide shot, children wrestling
30 JUNE 2016, NEW YORK CITY
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Justin Forsyth, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director:
“UNICEF is on the ground; we are helping rehabilitate hundreds of schools, we are training teachers, and we are also doing informal schools for children who are being displaced. I mean, right across this region, not just in Iraq, but in Syria, in Lebanon, there are children now that have been out of school for years; some up to five years. And we can’t afford to have this lost generation of children. So we are doing our bit as UNICEF to make sure children learn even in the midst of these conflicts and wars.”
UNICEF - MAY 2016, NORTHERN IRAQ
10. Wide shot, children outside school
11. Med shot, teacher and students in class
12. Various shots, children writing
30 JUNE 2016, NEW YORK CITY
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Justin Forsyth, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director:
“We have to reach the targets. I mean these children need our support. Whether they need water or food or protection or they need help to go back to school or to learn, even when they are displaced in camps, they desperately need our help. And I think when the world knows and they hear about their stories, I think they do respond. I think the public are very generous all around the world, and governments need to step up to the mark and provide more resources to help these children caught up in the conflict in Iraq.”
UNICEF - MAY 2016, NORTHERN IRAQ
14. Various shots, children in the camp
A new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that 3.6 million children in Iraq – one in five in the country - are at serious risk of death, injury, sexual violence, abduction and recruitment into armed groups.
In A Heavy Price for Children: Violence destroys childhoods in Iraq; UNICEF reports an increase of 1.3 million in 18 months.
The report also states that 4.7 million children in need of humanitarian aid, which amounts to one-third of all Iraqi children, as military operations in Fallujah and around Mosul face deteriorating living conditions.
According to the report, 1,496 children have been abducted in Iraq over the past two and a half years. That translates to 50 children abducted each month, with many forced into fighting or sexually abused.
SOUNDBITE (English) Justin Forsyth, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director:
“It‘s the fighting and the escalations of the fighting that really affect the children. I’ve been in Iraq in the last few years a couple of times and you meet moms and dads, as I did in one displaced people’s camp, and they told me how one armed group, ISIL, took their two children, one was six and one was nine, and they slit their throats in front of them. Another mother told me how her 14-year-old boy was shot in the head standing next to her. But interestingly they allowed the parents to live, but they killed the children. And I think that’s a shocking thing that we are hearing from our staff on the ground, is how children are being particularly targeted. And they are also being displaced by the fighting as it spreads in different parts of Iraq.
The report also reveals that almost 10 per cent of Iraqi children – more than 1.5 million – have been forced to flee their homes because of violence since the beginning of 2014, often multiple times.
Among the concerns – which also include a lack of adequate health care and poor public service – is a lack of education. The conflict has rendered nearly one in five unusable, preventing almost 3.5 million school-age children from learning, UNICEF said.
SOUNDBITE (English) Justin Forsyth, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director:
“UNICEF is on the ground; we are helping rehabilitate hundreds of schools, we are training teachers, and we are also doing informal schools for children who are being displaced. I mean, right across this region, not just in Iraq, but in Syria, in Lebanon, there are children now that have been out of school for years; some up to five years. And we can’t afford to have this lost generation of children. So we are doing our bit as UNICEF to make sure children learn even in the midst of these conflicts and wars.”
Among the steps that need to be taken immediately include ending the killing, maiming, abduction, torture, detention, sexual violence and recruitment of children, and providing unhindered and unconditional humanitarian access to all children in the country, according to the report.
UNICEF has launched an appeal for 100 million US dollars to fund their efforts in Iraq.
SOUNDBITE (English) Justin Forsyth, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director:
“We have to reach the targets. I mean these children need our support. Whether they need water or food or protection or they need help to go back to school or to learn, even when they are displaced in camps, they desperately need our help. And I think when the world knows and they hear about their stories, I think they do respond. I think the public are very generous all around the world, and governments need to step up to the mark and provide more resources to help these children caught up in the conflict in Iraq.”
Additional steps include expanding and improving education for out-of-school children through catch-up classes; providing psychological and recreation programmes to help children heal and to reconnect with their childhoods; and increasing funding for life-saving support for children, UNICEF said.
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