Unemployed Iraqis Turn to Crime

More Iraqis are turning to crime to raise money to feed their families. (Google)

"Each day more Iraqis are losing their jobs as response to the international economic crisis and joining criminal gangs who offer easy ways to reach to a wealthy life," Samira Abdel-Kader, an activist and social assistant, told IslamOnline.net.

"Fathers are getting desperate for not being able to join the labor force in Iraq. Many of them have been searching criminal paths as a way to get money to feed their children.

"Very few have been done by the government to revert the problem."

According to the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, nearly 28 percent of Iraqis aged between 15 and 29 are unemployed.

Government sources, however, estimate the unemployment rate at 40 percent.

"At least 60 percent of Iraqis working with al-Qaeda and criminal gangs don't have other choice," said Yehia Waleed, an aid worker and economics expert at Baghdad University.

"They were part of the thousands of unemployed Iraqis who were looking for a way to support their family and couldn't find it through normal ways."

Waleed said criminal gangs and militant groups offer salaries and a percentage of profits of illegal operations to recruit unemployed Iraqis.

"It is a dangerous situation for Iraq's future," he warned.

"People should feel secure in all levels and if the government doesn't offer this stability, others will do.

"For any human being the most important is to have food to feed his loved ones and it will just be possible with availability of work that isn't the actual reality of our country."

The Iraqi government says that the low oil prices are stumbling plans to create more jobs.

"Oil represents more than 90 percent of all Iraqi economy and our Ministry depends from this resource from where comes our budget to work in projects to increase employment," said Hana Muhammad, a senior official at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

"We are working to improve private job status and give more chance for people to open their own jobs that will consequently open new places for jobless people."

Sectarian

Experts say that the problem is aggravated by government favoritism and picking up employees on sectarian bases.

"Since 2006 people started to hire their employees according to their sects and inside government, ministries or government sectors that were headed by Shiite leaders, preferred to give job to those from the same origin or sect," Abdallah Hamoudy, a political analyst, told IOL.

"I don't say that it is an organized situation but it happened and now those fired found criminal lives are easier ways to fight for their places.

"Unfortunately many Iraqis are victims of this violence due to government lack of interest," he said.

Raad Omar, the head of the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, agrees.

"Unfortunately it is the reality for thousands of Iraqis," he said.

"People will find jobs according to their relations or political party and not for their competence."

He said the lack of a system to guarantee the rights of the employees adds insult to injury.

"There isn't a control of people working in private jobs, so they might be hired or fired anytime without employers get worried with their worker's rights," he said.

Salah Nuridin, 42, has been jobless since the 2003 US invasion and is depending on his wife's incoming, who is a housekeeper for feeding their family.

"Sometimes I find something that lasts for few days as driver or cleaner but nothing else," he told IOL.

"I tried many times finding a full job but it is very hard.

"During the past years I have gone out everyday nearly pleading people to give me the chance but without a university formation is even hard," he said.

Nuridin's oldest son is also jobless.

"My oldest son just graduated from university and cannot find a job and is working as helper in a hairdresser salon," he said.

"His biology college might never be used under actual circumstances and he might find out that all his four years of effort were useless."