Economic Rights and the Iraqi Diaspora

Middle Class Baghdadi Amira ended up in Jordan after losing her husband, losing her family assets and losing her security in the city she grew up in. Despite having a privileged destiny in Iraq, she now sells food on the streets of Amman, Jordan.

More than 2 million Iraqis have fled to Syria and Jordan since 2003. In a New York Times article this week journalist Sabrina Tavernise points out that many of those who fled to Jordan were educated middle class Iraqis, who fled to Jordan because of the conflict in Iraq and assumed that their assets would allow them to live somewhat comfortably abroad. With living expenses further reducing their remaining funds, many of these formerly well off individuals are slowly slipping into poverty. Part of the problem is that while early on the Jordanians did allow Iraqi professionals to register and work in their professional associations, the large influx of individuals has saturated the economy of the small Jordanian nation. Similar situations abound in Syria, with most refugees moving into larger centers like Damascus, complete areas of town have become filled with refugees coming from their border with Iraq with no jobs available to sustain their community.

While Jordan and Syria have been doing all possible to assist and give rights to work to incoming Iraqis, with appx.10% of the 2 million Iraqis newly living in Amman just in the last 5 years it is impossible for the two small nations to successfully absorb them into their economy. The international community needs to recognize that the crisis in Iraq despite all positive efforts requires more than aid agencies to help the overwhelming refugee crisis in not only Iraq, but Jordan and Syria as well. While Iraq is one of the worst modern refugee crisis it also is a crisis of the quickly disappearing middle class of a country who are essentially the only ones who could give a real future economy and society to a combined state of Iraq. Iraqi professionals have always been known as some of the most well educated and experienced professionals in the Middle East. Western countries need to address the crisis by taking Iraqis into their own nation to work and live at this point in the crisis. With Iraq in shambles and many considering the crisis being one that was preventable, the only future Iraq has is one that its neighbors and friends abroad can give them outside of an Iraq in turmoil.

For Podcast and Video, please see the New York Times article here.