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Subscribe to RSSEditor's note: Photojournalist Kael Alford spent 10 months covering the invasion of Iraq and its immediate aftermath in 2003-2004. She returned this summer to see what has and hasn’t changed as the U.S. prepared to withdraw its troops.
By Kael Alford
Entering the settlement of Chikuk (pronounced “Chook), strewn across a former Iraqi military barracks on the outskirts of north Baghdad, the pavement all but disappears and the road turns into a rough dirt track piled with trash on either side. Bare power lines sag overhead, a tangle of black emanating from a privately owned generator nearby.
Kael Alford / Panos Pictures
Mohammed, Hanin, Um-Mohanned and Karrar pose for a portrait inside the walled compound where they live in the squatters camp of Chikuk. Hanin's husband, Mohanned is at work and not pictured here.
As in much of Iraq, citizens pay exorbitant amounts to savvy local entrepreneurs for a few hours of unreliable electrical service. City power, which is spotty at best, doesn’t even reach Chikuk because no one is supposed to be living here. It's not a designated refugee camp; squatters claimed the space and built homes with their own hands. Most of those who are literally living off the grid in this camp are Shia refugees displaced by years of war and violent civil upheaval. Representatives from the U.N. High Commission for Refugees say the Iraqi government is only beginning to understand the magnitude of the squatter problem.
My driver, Sami, and I have visited a family in Chikuk before without any problems, but on this day we are stopped in the road by a cadre of black-clad men in front of what was once a U.N.-funded school. They introduce themselves as members of the “Council of 12” and claim they’ve been elected to represent the community. A bearded man asks me my business and wants to know why I’ve been visiting the family of Um-Mohanned and why we’ve singled them out for help, apparently referring to a bag of rice that Sami gave the family the day before. It does not seem an unreasonable question in a country shattered by political and ethnic divides, where everyone seems to suspect everyone else of ulterior motives.
I explain that we met Um-Mohanned while looking for the story of an ordinary family here.
The men offer us an escort, which we’re clearly not expected to decline. I’m not immune to the suspicions of Iraq, and I wonder if these men have strong-armed their way into this position of authority. I also suspect they may be affiliated with the militia formerly known as the Jaish al-Mehdi, aka the Mahdi Army, the armed wing of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s potent political machine. The militia has been ordered to put down its guns and engage in more socially oriented programs, including distributing aid to widows. The Sadrists know that to hold onto support of nation’s most vulnerable populations, their power base, they will need to help provide social support and keep a wary eye out for any challengers.
Sami keeps out escort busy chatting in the car and we soon reach Um-Mohanned’s house. She greets us warmly as we enter the courtyard of the two-room concrete block house, planting kisses on both cheeks. She tells us that her two oldest sons, who we were hoping to meet, had already gone to work. Then she admits that they didn’t want to talk to us.
So instead I interview Um-Mohanned again and things gradually become clearer. She has also been suspicious of us.
First, her oldest son, Mohanned (she is “Um-Mohanned” for the mother of Mohanned) is 15 and is married to his 15-year-old cousin -- the delicate girl in pink padding around the courtyard, fetching us tea and bread. She is four months pregnant. By Iraqi law it is illegal to marry before the age of 18, though still common among traditional families or those in need of extra hands around the house. So she had been worried that we would turn the underage couple in to the authorities.
Kael Alford / Panos Pictures
Um-Mohanned and her daughter-in-law Hanin share a breakfast of bread, cream, eggs and tea with visitors.
Um-Mohanned’s eyesight is very bad, she explains and she can’t afford glasses, so she arranged a marriage between her eldest son and a cousin – also a common practice in Iraq and not illegal -- so the young girl could come help run the household. Um-Mohanned admits it was not ideal for people to marry so young, but she says she needed the help.
Kael Alford / Panos Pictures
Hanin, pictured on her wedding day in a photograph with her husband Mohanned. The two were 15 when they married. The couple did not meet before their wedding day.
Then Um-Mohanned reveals a second sensitive circumstance of the family’s life, which began to unravel in 2005 in the neighborhood of Hasswa, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad.
“We were living in the same area like brothers. We didn’t know that this one is Shia, this one is Sunni. But when the terrorists came, we started to hear these names.”
Shia families such as hers became targets, their homes destroyed by homemade bombs or raided in the middle of the night, entire families murdered. So Um-Mohanned and her husband fled for their lives with their three sons and came to Chikuk.
Then one day her husband, a taxi driver, left for work and didn’t come home. She never heard from him again.
“I asked everyone, I even published his photo and the plate number of his car, and I’ve heard nothing until now,” she says. She assumes he’s dead but is resigned to the fact that she may never know what happened to him.
After their father disappeared, Mohanned and the couple’s middle son, Karrar, dropped out of school to find jobs and support the family. Mohanned drives a garbage truck and Karrar works in the market as a porter, carrying heavy items to shopper’s cars. Karrar earns the equivalent of about $8 per day and his brother not much more. The two boys support the family of five, while the youngest son, Mohammed, who is 12, attends school.
“I felt so sad when they left school,” says Um-Mohanned.
At this point the conversation turns to the complicated dynamic in traditional Iraqi society surrounding the role of women. Um-Mohanned says she told her sons she would have to go to work.
“My sons told me, ‘No. It will be a shame on us. When one of our friends will see you working somewhere, and they will talk badly about us.’”
So Um-Mohanned relented, and let the boys go to work instead.
“Even if I stayed home, suffering from hunger, I would rather that than have my boys hear any bad things about me,” she says.
There was another consideration as well. Crimes of violence against women are rife in Iraq, in part fueled by traditional views of women’s place in society. An “honor code in which men protect women from the shame of contact with men outside the family remains strong in traditional families. In extreme cases, some women who survived being kidnapped or raped were later the targets of honor killings within their own families for bringing shame on the household.
“It’s so difficult to move safely from area to area alone,” says Um-Mohanned. “I’d have to work as a saleswoman, selling simple things. It’s not like I can work in a ministry surrounded by guards and other people.”
The Iraqi Ministry of Central Planning estimates there are 900,000 war widows in Iraq, including those who lost husbands in the earlier war with Iran and to sectarian violence. An extensive survey of widows in Iraq by an aid group Relief International reported that widows are vulnerable to an array of dangers from high rates of poverty and domestic violence to recruitment by radical militants.
I wonder about the men who greeted us at the village entrance and ask her if she knows who they are. She explained that without a man around the house, she has no one to keep up with what’s going on in the local community. She did vote in the last election, for Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but is disappointed by the outcome.
“We didn’t get anything from this new government,” she says. “We lost our husbands, our houses, our lives.”
She says she sees no government assistance – not surprising considering the central government is barely aware of the locations of camps like these.
Later after tea, I ask Mohanned’s young wife about her arranged marriage. She says she also dropped out of school when she got married and that she and Mohanned had never spoken before that day. She refuses to tell me more in front of her mother in law, but brings out photographs of her wedding day. She is painted in the dramatic white face paint and heavy eyeshadow common among Iraqi brides. She looks unhappy -- almost angry -- in the photographs.
Um-Mohanned says the young couple gets along great now, they are inseparable and they never stop talking. Mohanned’s wife looks away in embarrassment, her face breaking into a shy smile.
Kael Alford / Panos Pictures
Hanin pictured inside the room she shares with her husband in a squatters camp in Chikuk. It is fairly common for girls to marry young, particularly if they do not plan to attend college. Hanin, who is four months pregnant, dropped out of school when she was married at 15 and does not expect to return.
More from the series:
Introduction: As U.S. withdraws, the people speak
For 'the Sheik,' U.S. pullout is cause for alarm
Patchwork electrical grid a symbol of country's disconnects
A new day for culture and consumer goods
For women, freedoms under fire
Suspicious minds in a squatters' camp
Colonel helped with the ‘Surge,’ then his past came calling
Related stories:
Koppel: Is the U.S. really leaving Iraq?
Engel: A look a the US bases, Iraqi troops and other legacies of the US presence
Leave a Comment:
Most Iraqi's think life was better under Saddam. Another waste of $$ and human lives like VietNam.
Everything is always better in hind sight, however the documented reality says a completely different story. During Saddam's time in power, hundreds of thousands of people were murdered (not accidentally killed as happens in collateral damage from bombings) The government committed sanctioned rape and torture as punishment for various offenses. One of his sons was allowed to drive down the street and pick up any woman he chose to, to rape. Executions were routinely ordered for any and all political opposition members.
The list is extensive and all of this is well documented.
They seem like a really nice and humble family but no matter what the story is, most Arab cultures refuse to evolve out of those barbaric, misogynistic, tribal beliefs. No one is saying they have to behave or believe western but there are certain things that are just common sense now (ex. don't have intimate relations with family, don't kill women because they can't defend themselves). I don't see any of the Arab cultures really evolving out of this mentality in the near future.
Charles
How many Arab countries have you lived in?
@jerri-1 I don't know how many Charles has been to, but I've spent time in 9 of them over the last 20 years and his description is pretty apt.
How many have YOU lived in?
Chris --
I don't know what you call "spending time" but I lived as a native for years in a North-African Arab country and I say he's full of it.
I knew my friends, neighbors, and in-laws fairly well. Other than my 10 year old nephew smacking my 7 year old niece one day -- for which he became the very uncomfortable subject of a mock family meeting -- I never saw any signs of men abusing women. I'm sure it happens behind closed doors, but probably not to the extent it does here, since the society IN FACT DOES NOT support it.
You people are bigots and you don't know anything about Arabs OR Muslims. If you claim you do, I call you a liar. I know you're a liar, because I do know the people and they are NOTHING AT ALL like you say.
You insist on equating corrupt laws made by corrupt governments with the values of the common people, and in your Christian fanaticism you fantasize all sorts of perversions that you publicly project onto Muslims because you can get away with it in this country. So some sick dictator forces a rape victim to marry her rapist and you nearly start dancing in your excitement.
How you managed to "spend time" among those people and still spew your hatred and bigotry is a mystery. Your time must have been spent as a soldier indoctrinated to murder them.
I was going to write an intelligent and meaningful rebuttal to you jerri, until I reviewed your previous few postings and realized who the real, closed minded bigot is. Your statement of:
tells us all we need to know about you. It tells us that no matter what our argument or proof is, you have been groomed to believe we are nothing more than soulless killers. So I won't waste my time arguing against your petty sentiment or your belief that since you lived in one country, they are all like that. You really should travel more. Your experience in one North African village gives you very little insight into the rest of the Arab or Muslim world.
I may be any number of things, but I am a sincere person. And my experience is not limited to one North African village.
But you are right. I will stand tall for my belief that those individuals who invaded Iraq are murderers. Absolutely. No one forced you to go, those people had done nothing to us, and anyone with a lick of sense knew that Bush was a cretin.
You are personally responsible when you kill, or cause to be killed, or help to kill another human being. That is my firm opinion.
But I haven't been "groomed" to it. It is my own opinion from my own values based on my own experiences in this world. I am a person who walks alone.
LOL
So I nailed it, didn't I? Your experience is as a soldier who invaded their country, and you think that gives you a clearer picture of the common people than someone who has lived among them as a neighbor.
Right.
I agree with WhoSaid. The people who invaded Iraq were murderers. I assure you, if Iraq had invaded us and killed tens of thousands, we would have called it murder. We would have been running around hysterically, crying about how we hadn't done anything at all to Iraq, (which in our case wouldn't be true), screaming about terrorism, and feeling oh-so victimized.
Oh wait. We did that at 9/11 with "only" a few thousand dead.
I'll tell you what, though. I catch a small glimmer of humanity in your post. So all I can say is God help you. You have to live the rest of your life with what you've done. Oh I know if you read this post you will assure me that you are terribly proud of it.
Well, although I don't wish misery on anyone (or at least, on few people. I wish the fires of hell on Bush and Cheney), I hope for your soul that at 3 a.m. you're not so sure. I hope it for you and I hope it for the innocent people you might participate in killing in the future.
Killing, except in defense, is wrong, mister. There was absolutely NO element of defense involved. It was an act of blatant military aggression against people who posed no threat to us whatsoever. If another country had done it, it would be wrong. We are no better than anyone else. It was wrong when we did it, too.
With due respect, MSNBC should have a journalist writing about Iraq after the war--not a photographer. The story is thin and not well edited, and this family seems a bit of a haphazard choice. I do appreciate the efforts of the photographer to get it in a country that is rife with difficulties and danger.
I hope their country pursues the path to peace, as any loving God would have
wanted, and look to the future, as there is no changing the past. We can
set the direction for what is to come, keeping those driven by lust and greed
from the halls of government. I wish them all the best.
No mention in the article, I am sure some villages and towns in Northeastern and Northern Iraq appeciate not having mustard gas dropped on them as during the Saddam Genocidal Regime days. The Liberation troops allowed for the achievement of something that did NOT happen in the 5000 year Iraqi history, the right to vote despite the efforts to stop this from the Al-Queda and Iranian Inspired Occupation Forces in Iraq. Congrats to all the US and Coaliation Forces in liberating Iraq, you all did a wonderful job. The US Liberation Forces were never the problem, it was the A-Queda and Iranian Inspired Occupation Forces that are the problem.
Meanwhile, someplace I read where Bush and all his followers said things would be better for ALL Iraqi's, after they kill Saddam, better, where?
I believe the article pointed out they were living on a deserted Army Barracks what would you expect to find
Can someone please tell me what we achieved with all this killing and destruction? They still have not told us how many innocent Iraqi people were killed and never will. This war will go down in history as the war that ended American property and good will around the world. Those who fought in it will come to know they were used and abused for naught. It will ripple down for generations. We have done so much damage to ourselves and to Iraq with this war for cheap oil.
Cheap oil? I guess you're not living in CA...
beth do you know how many innocents were killed in WW2
Beth, you are ignorant beyond words. The US hasn't made a penny on Iraqi oil. Look it up, do the research, then comment. As for innocent Iraqis killed, we know that over a million innocent Iraqis were killed under Saddam for political dissent because our men and women in uniform found the mass graves. If Iraq was called Germany, you'd be singing a different tune.
As the author of this article do you not have any accountability for revealing the young girls name and whereabouts? As you stated she is not 18 and it is illegal to marry. Really putting someone in harms way for a story?
No to mention her picture karen.... I thought about the same thing. I hope this doesn't have tragic consequences for this family.
Interesting report from last night.
It's not over, and it's all about the oil!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#45646952
We are importing less oil from Iraq then we did before the war
At this point, success or failure is up to the Iraqi people.
I spoke to a few servicemen when they came home for visits, that said when SH was removed the Iraqi people thought the US could move heaven and earth and things would change dramatically in that country. They just had no concept of how hard it is to nation build. As you can see, Iraq is not just one people, but many small groups within a group within a region, etc. Anthony Bourdain visited the Kurds on one of his shows that have yet another perspective. Clearly the Kurds are very pro west, the most organized and from their perspective making huge economic gains with great pride. I would say that was why they were the target of SH, wanting to eliminate their success. Clearly the Kurds do not trust the rest of Iraq. The division of the oil profits is yet another issue within the country that makes unity an easy transition.
We go in there for no reason whatsoever and decimate their country, murder innocent civilians, destroy their infrastructure, open their country to terrorists, then shrug and say hey, it's up to you to somehow clean up the mess we made.
No wonder the world hates us.
I would wish for these people, an education for all of them and an entrance for them and their country into the 21st century. All religion and faith aside - this is the year 2011, there is a space station above their heads where scientists live and work - do they know that? Do they hope for their youngest that one day he can be a leader of their country? Do they hope for their youngest that he will grow to be a doctor? A lawyer? A teacher? I hope for the best for all of them, but I'm not holding my breath.
Kate, apparently you do not realize that before we invaded their country, Iraqi women were among the most highly-educated in the Middle East. They enjoyed equal pay -- which, btw, American women still don't have -- the right to vote, the right to run for political office, and the right to become doctors, lawyers, and teachers, among other professions.
You don't know anything about Iraq, its history, or its people. You are just a typical American bigot who shoots off her mouth and shows her ignorance with every arrogant word -- exactly like Bush.
People like you make me embarrassed to be an American.
They will be begging us to come back when Iran increases military maneuvers and expands their campaign of cockiness. Iran is the one factor over which Obama is making a serious miscalculation.
Wake the Hell Up will You? Does somebody have to slap you and the rest like you up the side of the head?
Yeah Iran is full of cockiness but who the Hell do you think is egging that cockiness on?Bugs Bunny?
NO WE ARE!Bush the Ass Hole and his band of Merry Gangsters didn't go into Iraq because they really had to.No sunshine they went in there because he and the rest of those filthy parasites WANTED TO out of REVENGE AND GREED!
Guess at whose expense and whose lives?Why the American Tax Payer and all those Dead Soldiers who were in the United States Military.Guess what else?He Bush, thought tax payer money and military lives were expendable!Bush and his Gangster Cronies didn't give a sh it,they got what the hell they wanted REVENGE and GREED,and the HELL with the money and people's lives.
You and your kind just don't get it do you?Well once again WAKE THE HELL UP YOU'VE BEEN SOLD A BILL OF GOODS AND A LINE OF BULL @!$%#!
Yeah those lousy Democrats in Congress who approved it
I'd vote to send some people from America to live in Iraq... OWS protesters would be a good start. People in America are selfish and arrogant. They have no idea what it means to have nothing or to complain about not finding a decent paying job or benefits for that matter.
Really Steve should they?Well guess what?You have no friggen idea of what the hell you're talking about.
A lot of Hot air Stevie!
Let's send the Republicans to Iraq. Then we could get back to the country our Forefathers had envisioned!
I don't think they envisioned a debtors prison 15 trillion and counting
What kind of demented monster forces a 15 year old girl to marry let alone marry her Cousin? That is just unacceptable.
One story...one family...it can hardly be said that this is the feeling throughout the country. This is the story that MSNBC and the author wants to be out there.
I wonder, if an article of this nature were possible back when the US went thru the Revolutionary War, the Confederate War or after both WWI and WWII, wouldn't the same impressions and commments parallel each other? This country has been torn apart, it will take time. It's a process. Hopefully Iraq will be able to rise from this much stronger and better than they were before. To make the ascertion this early in the process is somewhat remiss. Give these people and their government time to find their way. The international community needs to embrace and support them. There is so much opportunity out there. It will be interesting to see where things are 10, 20 or 50 yrs from now.
So, people are going 'missing', their kids are dropping out of school to support their hungry familys, the only security is provided by randoms/contractors with guns and theres zero social support from the government. This is covered in right wing hoof prints......
It's time we stop playing world police and get the eff out of that country.
You're right, we should just sit back and watch innocent people be murdered by dictators and terrorist regimes. We should take our amazing military might and goodwill and stuff it in our back pockets. We should ignore the fact that we have the means to defend the defenseless, and pay more attention to ourselves. If we don't police the world, who will? The UN? Good luck with that. They couldn't enforce sanctions on a cat for God's sake. Wake up.
And what do we get for policing the world, two terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the USS Cole, and an embassy. Let the Middle East solve middle eastern problems and Europe solve Europe's problems so we can solve the US's problems
Are you people really that naive? Is that what you think we're doing -- policing the world?
Holy crap.
Their culture and religion that keeps them from ever evolving... its not until they get totally immersed (and usually not by choice) in western culture that they become enlightened and even then it takes a couple of generations to move forward.
Get out and see how the other side lives and you will shed your ignorance. It'll take a while for them to shed their barbaric culture and traditions... say what you will about what I'm saying but its true.
God bless you Iraqi civilians...I apologise for our stupid country under George Bush and what happened to your ppl and our Military. The politicians of this country have been scum for decades...demons thru and thru.
Cry for 3k dead on 911 and who is crying for your 150K...yes double standards to human life. Dont worry Karma will come your way. Proud Babylon will rise again.
I don't think it made the connection clear as to what has changed. Also, the family fled because of terrorist; was that before the US came or after?
Are we the conscience of the world?
George Bush didn't want to be the conscience of the world, or did he?
Or did he just see a "quick" way to "get" Iraq's oil and a foot hold in the middle east?
An honest inquiry into the cause, purpose and effect of Bush's attack on Iraq (the ACTUAL perpetrators
of the war was ARAB bases....A R A B S NOT Iraq!
So we now flee Iraq in far worst shape due to the unresolved chaos there, the continuing corruption from the Saudi's, the Iranian hatred of the Israeli's and the enduring duplicity of the Pakistani's! The cause of most of this reactive turmoil is a result of Bush's illegal response to 9-11 by attacking Iraq. America had the world on it's side after the 9-11. We blew by entering Iraq and not getting free countries to immediately challenge the Arabs - NOT the Iraqui's - and to stop their influence.
THINK! Bush's very first reaction after the 9-11 attack?! ?
To allow three private , non-searched 747 plane loads of of "important" Arabs to be the only non - American military planes to immediately fly out of the country. Why?