The suffering of black-skinned people in Iraq .. "racism and discrimination"!

[size=52]The suffering of black-skinned people in Iraq .. "racism and discrimination"![/size]

[size=45]Black people in Iraq face discrimination because of their colour. They are distributed in all regions of Iraq, especially in the southern cities, especially in Basra. It seems that the difficulty of obtaining job opportunities is the most prominent thing they face, whether working in the public or private sector.[/size]
[size=45]This is what Zahra Hamid, 25, from Basra, for example, faced. She has been struggling for years to find a job that would help her endure difficult economic conditions and secure her life and that of her family.[/size]
[size=45]'We feel less important'[/size]
[size=45]Zahra Hamid says: “Really, job opportunities are unequal for everyone. We are the last people to think about hiring us, and the reason is clear, because of our brown skin. This discrimination leads me to feel that we are second-class citizens, not Iraqis, and that we are less important than the rest of society. I feel this by wandering between companies and shops in search of a job, the least I do is withdraw and leave applying for work.” Despite Zahraa’s continued suffering during her search for work, she did not compromise in front of her ambition, as she continues to search for a suitable work environment free of discrimination. , and to look at her skills and "not on the basis of external appearance and appearance." Despite the difficulties, Zahraa did not give up and kept looking for an opportunity to realize her ambition to get a job. She hopes to find a workplace that will value her based on experience and skills: “We are Iraqis, we hold Iraqi citizenship, so why is this discrimination against us? I don't know,” Zahraa says.[/size]
[size=45]Exceptional "success story"[/size]
[size=45]The media, Randa Abdel Aziz (27 years), has achieved success in her field of work as a news anchor on the official Iraqi channel.[/size]
[size=45]Randa did not find that the color of her skin prevented her from obtaining a job in the media field, a field that is difficult for other women to pursue. Randa says: "I hope that entering the media field will become an encouraging factor for other women of dark skin, pushing them to enter other fields of work, whether in the media or otherwise, and that the color of their skin does not constitute any obstacle to achieving their goals." Randa added by saying: "The discrimination faced by people of brown skin, encounters them with a group of society, not all, and discrimination is an attribute that exists in all religions, nationalities and sects, and is not limited to a specific group of society."[/size]
[size=45]Randa's appearance in the news bulletins gave hope again to black-skinned women to obtain jobs that were the preserve of others, and almost any media institution in Iraq is devoid of them, whether male or female. This is what Randa considers a successful step in which she revived hope. After 2003, it became available to all citizens to establish humanitarian organizations or associations that adopt various societal issues. In Basra, the "Black People Gathering" is working to obtain the rights of black people who have been denied them for decades. The founders and members of the assembly are all black-skinned, who found the idea of ​​establishing the assembly a door to demand rights.[/size]
[size=45]"Racial contempt, not discrimination"[/size]
[size=45]Majed Al-Khalidi, 32, a media official in the “Black People Gathering,” says: “The idea of ​​establishing this gathering came from the urgent need to create a gathering that works for the benefit of the brown-skinned people, who are deprived of their most basic rights, which are job opportunities, in addition to the absence of state institutions from positions. For people of brown skin, whether at the governmental level as a minister, member of parliament, director general, or even a member of government committees.” Al-Khalidi says: “This discrimination that we suffer comes from all sides, starting with the state and reaching the simplest citizen, I can call it contempt. It is racist and not discriminatory,” he said. He adds, "A group of members of society deliberately use the word (slave), and the scene of discrimination is repeated at the level of art. In soap operas and on the Iraqi stage, al-Asmar is always abused as poor and without rights."[/size]
[size=45]Al-Khalidi points out that «appointments and jobs are limited to influential people in the state, who share them among themselves. We also categorically refuse to participate in the political process, neither in the past nor at present, so there is no need to belong to a party in order to get a job.”[/size]
[size=45]Saad Salloum, an expert in diversity affairs and founder of the Institute for Diversity Studies in Baghdad, says: “The Afro-Iraqis are an Iraqi component that is no different from any other component. They have suffered social discrimination on the basis of color, and there is no interest in their own culture and identity.” Salloum adds: “The Iraqi constitution does not include any law or legislation that guarantees the rights of the Iraqi components, and what we have are constitutional articles that mention minorities or as they are called in the constitution the officially recognized religious components, namely: Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, and Sabean-Mandaeans, and Afro-Iraqis are a group Not recognized from the constitutional point of view and legislation. For this, there is a need to legislate a law to guarantee their rights like the rest of the minorities mentioned in the constitution.” According to the multiple studies conducted by Salloum on the Iraqi components, it was found that the number of black-skinned people does not exceed 400,000 people. and say: “The international reports that mention that their number is in the millions is incorrect and is based on false information in order to inflate their numbers due to the prevailing culture in society, which is the culture of quantity. The larger the number, the more the other parties will count you.”  About (DW)[/size]
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