Nearly three decades of war, brutal totalitarianism, invasion, occupation and insurgency in Iraq have left behind at least a million widows - and several million children without fathers.
That was the conservative estimate earlier in 2009 by Iraq's acting minister for women's affairs, Narmeen Othman. She believes there may even be two million widows.
Under Saddam Hussein, despite the brutality of his regime towards so many of Iraq's people, war widows were looked after by the state. Now, they are mostly hidden and vulnerable.
It's been called Iraq's cultural time bomb.
Close to the surface of the new normality here, there are painful memories, and a yearning for lost loved ones.
And - there's anxiety about looking after the children when the breadwinner has gone.
Success story
At the al-Ethar charity in west Baghdad, donations from well-wishers help support families without fathers. They also help to find husbands for women who want to remarry.
The director, Hana Badrani, told me she has more than 2,000 widows on her books, with a total of 7,000 children whose fathers have been killed. Most of the widows do not have any qualifications to help them get work. They're trapped.
She introduced me to one of their success stories - Iman and Hussein. Iman's husband was shot dead two years ago. She has now re-married - and she and Hussein have a little boy called Yussef, who kept on catching my eye and grinning.
http://newageislam.com/iraqi-widows-yearn-for-new-lives/islamic-world-news/d/1859
Categories : 
11:09 PM
Moderate Islamist here
