Children in Iraq camps dream big but can’t enroll in school

HAMMAM AL-ALIL: Maareb has big dreams, but she may never get to realise them. Every day, when her friends attend class in the Iraqi displacement camp they call home, she stays behind.

The makeshift primary school in the dusty Hammam al-Alil 2 camp in Iraq’s north opened earlier this year, but several thousand displaced children are unable to access it.

For Maareb, the problem is paperwork.

“I want to go to school with my friends, but I’m not allowed because I don’t have an ID,” says the sevenyear-old, her plaited hair dangling down her back.

“I want to finish my studies to become a doctor.”

Maareb and her family fled to Hammam al-Alil 2 a few years ago from Zammar, around 90km west, as the Islamic State group overran the region.

At the time, Maareb had proof of birth provided by a hospital, but no government-issued identification. In the violent chaos of IS’s reign, her father could not acquire the necessary papers to secure her a spot in a classroom.

“Because of our displacement, I was never able to get an ID card for Maareb, so she doesn’t have any paperwork besides a birth certificate,” says her father, Ibrahim Helo.

Hammam al-Alil 2 lies in an arid plain just 30km south-east of Mosul, the historic Iraqi city that became infamous as IS’s de facto capital in the country.

Iraqi security forces retook Mosul last summer, but with no homes to return to, thousands stayed in camps.

Over 1.9 million people remain displaced in Iraq, more than half of them children.

Over the years, Hammam al-Alil 2 became a bustling settlement: rows of tents with water and electricity access, plus storefronts, playgrounds, and a health centre.

But aid groups only established a primary school this year, with five teachers instructing 2,500 kids up to age 10.

That leaves around 5,000 camp children with no schooling, says school principal Ibrahim Khodr, 55.

“There are many reasons kids can’t attend school,” Khodr says.

“No documentation due to displacement, no encouragement by parents to finish schooling, tough financial situations, and the fact that families – especially those without breadwinners – send their children to work.”

Khodr says education authorities in Nineveh province have pledged to establish a school for older kids. “We can’t keep teaching in these circumstances. The Nineveh education directorate and the ministry of education must act to alleviate this suffering.”

Human Rights Watch researcher Belkis Wille told the Iraq’s policy of barring school access for undocumented children was “shocking”.

“Iraq should be engaging in every effort to reintegrate the hundreds of thousands of families who lived under IS for three years,” she said.

“A key way of ensuring they are brought back into the fold is through putting their children back into schools as soon as possible.”