800,000 Iraqi Children Not Attending School

Karen Button

Schools in Iraq will soon resume, but thousands of worried families will be keeping their children at home for fears of kidnapping or worse. Girls are at particular risk. A joint Ministry of Interior (MoE) and UNICEF study found that of those who do not attend school, 74 percent are female children. A recent report by the UK-based organisation Save the Children, entitled "Rewrite the Future: Education for children in conflict-affected countries," documents the effects of armed conflict on primary education in 30 countries. Some 115 million primary-aged children do not attend school for various reasons, the report says, yet by far the biggest contributor is conflict, which deprives one in three, or 43 million, from attending. In Iraq that translates to 818,000 primary-aged children, or 22.2 percent of Iraq’s student population, who are not attending school...

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