NO AID
UNICEF - 1 IN 5 CHILDREN IN IRAQ AT SERIOUS RISK OF DEATH, INJURY, SEX CRIME
UNICEF: 'Some 3.6 million children, one in five of all Iraqi children, are at serious risk of death, injury, sexual violence, abduction and recruitment into fighting. This number has increased by 1.3 million in just the past eighteen months'. 'The country is reeling after decades of conflict, insecurity and neglect, and the impact on children worsens every day. One out of every 25 children in Iraq dies before reaching their fifth birthday. Only two out of five children has access to safe chlorinated water. UNICEF estimates that 4.7 million children across Iraq need some form of humanitarian assistance — that’s about one-third of all children in the country.'
MIT - IRAQ: THE HUMAN COST
The coalition's invasionof Iraq and Afghanistan has led to a large number of children being orphaned. According to MIT’s website ‘Iraq: The Human Cost’, there are 4.5 million war orphans in Iraq alone and 600,000 of them are living in the street.
CHILDREN COLLECTING HAZARDOUS WASTE
Many orphans survive by collecting scrap from the landfills. Pentagon has dumped 11 million pounds of hazardous waste there, in Iraq.
MINES IN AFGHANISTAN
'It's estimated that up to a million people have fallen victim to the sleeping weapons, which still kill and injure dozens of innocent Afghan children every day. It's believed there are currently 10 million mines spread around the impoverished country.
When internally displaced, they're at much greater risk of coming across the millions of 'butterfly mines', which are made of green plastic and are mistaken for toys.'
LITTLE OR NO COMPENSATION FOR VICTIMS OF COALITION BOMBINGS
IT IS A CAPITAL CRIME IN THE US
18 USC § 2441 gives the death penalty for 'a grave breach' in the Geneva Convention (IV) 1949, if death results to the victim. It's inevitable that at least one child will die given the violence of war, lack of clean food and water, and violent crime that always follow war.
US CRIMINAL LAW ON WAR CRIME - 18 USC 2441
18 USC § 2441: (a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death. (b) Circumstances.— The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act). (c) Definition.— As used in this section the term “war crime” means any conduct— (1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party.
GENEVA CONVENTION (IV) 12 Aug. 1949
The Geneva Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, Chapter 7, Article 50 obligates the coalition (as a fmr. occupying power) to ensure 'registration (...) maintenance and education (...) of children who are orphaned or separated from their parents as a result of the war'. Article 55, 56, and 59 is on the rest of the victims' right to basic necessities.
DEFINITION OF 'OCCUPYING POWER'
Oxford Dictionary: 'A state whose army occupies (part of) a foreign country'.
DEFINITION OF 'OCCUPATION' IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
'Territory is considered occupied when it is placed under the authority of the hostile army'.
