MOSUL: Married for over a decade, Alia Abdel-Razak is one of a million Iraqis deprived of crucial civil status documents, often caught in legal limbo in a country paralysed by bureaucracy and the ravages of war.
The 37-year-old has to overcome countless hurdles just to get her children into school, and she cannot register her family to obtain the food subsidies she and her husband so desperately need.
A mother of four, Abdel-Razak relies on a pro-bono lawyer from aid group the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to help her navigate the labyrinthine processes required to get her papers in order.
Like many others, she struggles with endless red tape — but also the fallout from the country’s gruelling battle to defeat the IS group — to obtain documents like marriage and birth certificates.
“I don’t have the means, lawyers want $300-500. Where can I get this money when I don’t even have enough to eat?” she said.
Her dilapidated Mosul apartment bears witness to her daily struggle, with its bare concrete floors and
broken windows patched up with cardboard.
She was married in 2012 and gave birth to her first daughter a year later.
But in 2014, IS seized Mosul and declared it the capital of its “caliphate”, driving out local officials in favour of their own administration.
The absence of civil status documents obstructs access to basic services such as “education, healthcare, and social security benefits”, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.
— AFP
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