Iraq faces challenges in ensuring compliance with internationally recognized standards for the protection of institutionalized persons, principally (a) persons with severe mental illness or disability, (b) orphans and minors under state custody for criminal offenses, and (c) women in domestic violence shelters. These populations are especially vulnerable to abuse – including malnutrition and beatings, sexual abuse, forced prostitution, misuse of chemical restraints and electroshock therapy, and forced isolation from family members – and have few constituencies within Iraqi society to protect them. Iraq has signed relevant international instruments and agreements and has drafted but not yet passed a Mental Health Act to protect the rights of the severely mentally ill. However, monitoring and enforcement of international and domestic laws with respect to the human rights of institutionalized persons is absent or minimal in Iraq.

Summary

Heartland Alliance is working with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MoLSA), the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ministry of Human Rights (MoHR) to improve services and training in Iraq's juvenile reformatories, schools for disabled children, women's shelters and psychiatric units.  The project provides training to social workers and patient advocates, creates overlapping systems of monitoring by government agencies and local NGOs in order to identify and respond to abuses, and pairs direct service with long-term capacity building.  Through this project, Heartland Alliance is working to foster an Iraqi constituency for protection and care for some of Iraq's most vulnerable persons.

Activities

Heartland Alliance is currently implementing a three-year project to protect and serve institutionalized persons by:

• Training inspectors and supervisors in three ministries and four Iraqi NGOs to conduct monitoring and respond to emergency cases of abuse and neglect;
• Providing direct assistance to victims of abuse or neglect ;
• Training social workers and patient advocates at mental institutions, orphanages, juvenile detention centers, and domestic violence shelters;
• Working with the Iraqi Lawyers Syndicate and the Iraqi Medical Association to draft accreditation standards for both public and NGO residential facilities;
• Helping establish a national association for the families of the mentally ill to advocate for protection, government funding and legislative reform.