No one knows exactly how many children have been detained in Iraqi prisons since the country was 'liberated' because officials refuse to release information about their status or experiences in jail. Some who have been released have claimed they have been beaten, tortured and/or raped, yet Iraq's corrupt Interior Ministry, which has acted as a shield for some death squads, has not provided childrens aid groups like UNICEF with accurate information. The US also denies that it has any child prisoners in custody but there is no way to verify such a claim because aid groups are unable to travel to the facilities due to the extreme violence that continues to plague the country.
So, the children continue to suffer.
No doubt there are some who have engaged in illegal acts, but there are others like Omar who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time:
He isn't a criminal, but just the sight of a police officer terrifies 14-year-old Omar.
The boy was released last month from an Iraqi prison, after being detained there for more than seven months. "They arrested me because they said I was a suspect after a car bomb exploded in a road near my home and resulted in the killing of an American," Omar explains. He happened to be near the explosion and was arrested along with adult Iraqis suspected of the attack.
Omar was one of 450 detainees who were let out of the two Iraqi and US-run prisons on 27 June, under a national reconciliation plan aimed at bringing insurgents into the political process and ending the bloodshed in Iraq.
Although Omar was falsely arrested, dozens of other children have been imprisoned for their roles in attacks, or because poverty turned them to crime, according to reports from local and international groups and the news media in the past three years.
Omar said the experience of being in prison was terrifying, "and I was crying day and night for my family." The trauma of the experience remains with him: "I would rather die than go there again."
Whatever the reason for arrest, Iraqi children are sometimes kept in the same place as adults, human rights groups say. When they leave prison, there is no psychological or other support for them to help prevent their returning to the streets and crime.
Without adequate support, many of today's children may become tomorrow's insurgents. Or, if they don't, they certainly face serious integration problems once they return to society.
According to international human rights law, children who have been detained should be kept in a special place apart from adults, and should receive special treatment and for the minimum time possible. But in Iraq, some claim that children are detained more than two years in prisons with adults.
"I was arrested with my cousin in September 2004 when I was 14," said another child prisoner, Moussa, who was accused of participating in the insurgency but was released last year. He said prisoners were tortured with electrical shock and being bitten by dogs. "In many cases we saw colleagues returning to our jail after being raped by soldiers."
The Iraq government rejected the claim that children are being held for long periods. Officials said a few youths are arrested when they are suspected of participation in terrorism, but are only held long enough for interrogation.
"It is really complicated to find how many children are being held in Iraq prisons because they are there for a very short period of time," said Lt. Col. Hassan Obaid, senior officer in the Ministry of Interior. He said there would be no more than 100 at any one time nationwide held for interrogations.
If those 'interrogations' take two years, one is left wondering why the Iraqi government is unable or unwiling to provide any statistics. But, public denial appears to be the operative stance.
The concerns about children in Iraqi prisons has been ongoing. The article I linked to containing Omar's story was practically the same as one that appeared in the Sunday Herald in 2004. Two years have gone by since then with almost no progress on the issue.
The children will continue to suffer in silence while America is distracted with the new Middle East war and while Bush's 'stay the course' policy for his military campaign in Iraq continues to devastate the country and all of its citizens, except for those who hold power and choose to abuse it.
Freedom certainly isn't on the march for many of Iraq's children as they live through the hell of war.
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