Rights group: Education improves for Iraqi refugees in Jordan

Iraqi refugee children in Jordan have greater educational opportunities now, reported a human rights worker following a recent trip to Jordan.

|PIC1|The Jordanian government now allows school-aged Iraqi refugees to attend public school regardless of their parents' legal status, Amnesty International's Sarnata Reynolds informed reporters Tuesday.

On Aug. 19, refugee children in Jordan started the school year for the first time since they fled their homeland. According to Human Rights First, a New York-based advocacy group, there are an estimated 200,000-250,000 Iraqi refugees who are school-aged children in Jordan.

Despite the good news, Reynolds said a large number of the Iraqi children have missed more than a year of school and are in need of remedial education to re-enter the school system. Another educational obstacle is the fact that refugee children are working to support their family.

In addition to education, there are some more positive changes, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) providing healthcare to refugees. Yet the refugee director was quick to point out the NGOs' limits in the number of patients they can treat and the lack of medicine and equipment for some illnesses.

Furthermore, outside of education and healthcare, "the Iraqi refugee situation in Jordan remains grim," said Reynolds. "Every refugee I met has suffered persecution directly, death threats, kidnapping or indirectly through a kidnapped or killed family member."

The president of one of the world's largest Christian relief and development organisation has identified international aid agencies as "the only hope" for Iraqi refugees who lack proper shelter, water and food.

"We have great concern for the Iraqi refugees that are in Jordan. We're working there. We're concerned about the refugees in Syria. These are forgotten people," World Vision International President Dean Hirsch told Agence France-Presse in August.

Combined, there are about 2.25 million Iraqi refugees between Jordan and Syria, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Christians, although composing less than five percent of the Iraqi population, make up 20 percent of the refugee population in Jordan and Syria.

World Vision, which focuses on children care, calls Iraqi children "among the most distressed refugee populations worldwide."

"Without legal status, psychological rehabilitation, proper education and medical assistance, this devastated and scattered generation is trapped with little hope for the future unless meaningful assistance is provided by the international community," the organization stated in its report on Iraqi refugee children.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi refugee children in Syria, like their counterpart in Jordan, also started the new school year with the help of UNHCR and the UN Children's Fund in September.

In total, there are an estimated 750,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordan who now account for more than 10 percent of the country's total population. Between the Iraqi refugees and the population of Palestinians, Jordan now hosts the largest number of refugees, per capita, of any country in the world.