Self-evident

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 at 10:22 | Posted in Iraq, war | Leave a comment

According to Washington Post, psychiatrists, social workers and teachers in Iraq have made a ground breaking discovery: Iraqi children suffer from seeing violent scenes in real life due to the war. The psychological damage is likely to last for the rest of their life:

Iraq’s conflict is exacting an immense and largely unnoticed psychological toll on children and youth that will have long-term consequences, said social workers, psychiatrists, teachers and aid workers in interviews across Baghdad and in neighboring Jordan.

The Post also reports about a WHO survey:

In a World Health Organization survey of 600 children ages 3 to 10 in Baghdad last year, 47 percent said they had been exposed to a major traumatic event over the past two years. Of this group, 14 percent showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. In a second study of 1,090 adolescents in the northern city of Mosul, 30 percent showed symptoms of the disorder.

Did they really need a research to reach such conclusions? Sounds like self-evident in my ears. Children tend to get hurt if they witness violence.