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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has opened a child protection center in Halabja's Khurmal district, a local official said on Monday, in a move aimed at providing support services for children.
Dana Hamashareef, Halabja's director of social monitoring and development, told Rudaw that KRG Labor and Social Affairs Minister Kwestan Mohammed 'decided during her visit to open a center for child protection and monitoring in Khurmal district.'
The center was opened as part of Mohammed's decision to expand her ministry's activities in the province, according to Hamashareef, and it aims to provide a coordinated network of services, regulations, and supervisory measures to safeguard children's rights and welfare.
Child protection efforts are particularly critical in cities, where dense populations, poverty, insecurity, and limited access to essential services can heighten children's vulnerability to abuse, exploitation, and neglect.
"The opening aims to monitor and provide greater support to children, as there was previously no similar center in the district," Hamashareef added.
The center will be under the authority of the province's social monitoring and development directorate.
Article 29 of the Iraqi Constitution stipulates that 'the state shall guarantee the protection of motherhood, childhood, and old age, shall care for children and youth, and shall provide them with the appropriate conditions to develop their talents and abilities.'
The article also explicitly prohibits the economic exploitation of children and bans all forms of violence and abuse within the family, schools, and society.
But despite such laws, children in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are often the subject of economic and physical exploitation, with widespread abuses frequently going unreported.
Halabja officially became Iraq's 19th province in May.
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