What is the biggest challenge facing the children of Iraq today?
Rashad: Our children are suffering from the same things that we are suffering from, like water and electricity shortages, but children are especially sensitive to fear. When American soldiers blast open the door and inspect your home, the children become so frightened. When that is repeated time and time again, the children become traumatized. You cannot take your child to a garden or a park, because it is not secure. There are as many dangers as there are bullets in Baghdad. So you keep your children indoors. But when they are kept inside all day and night, without even electricity to watch TV or play video games, you find that they become agitated and act out against each other. No day comes or passes without hearing an explosion or gunfire, and helicopters are always overhead. We are afraid to take our kids to school because even schools have been bombed. When we do allow our children to go to school, we worry about them, and the children themselves are constantly afraid. In additio
