Widows Become the Silent Tragedy

Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service

Hundreds of thousands of widows are becoming the silent tragedy of a country sliding deeper into chaos by the day. Widows are the flip side of violence that has meant more than a million men dead, detained or disabled, Iraqi NGOs estimate. These men's wives or mothers now carry the burden of running the families. "The total figure of men who have been killed, disabled or detained for long periods of time adds up to more than one and a half million," Khalid Hameed, chief of the Iraqi al-Raya human rights organisation told IPS. "The average number of Iraqi family members is seven, so about ten million Iraqis are facing the worst living circumstances." In these circumstances, he said, women have had to "search for ways to survive and support their families at a time when not much help comes from the international community."...

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