The Sound of Silence: Social Work, the Academy, and Iraq

Despite the imposition of economic sanctions against Iraq in 1990, the social work academy has ignored the impact of this global social policy promoted by the international community. Though evidence existed for more than 10 years that sanctions contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children and other vulnerable groups in Iraq, while also crippling the nation's health care and social infrastructure, the profession has remained silent. The implications of this case study suggest a need for greater engagement by social work researchers and the profession on global issues. Key words: Iraq, social work, economic sanctions, social work researchers, global issues, global social policy Introduction What happens when hundreds of thousands of civilians in one country die within 10 years due largely to a policy carried out on behalf of the international community? For more than 12 years, the use of economic sanctions against Iraq, often enforced at the behest of the United States, produced a range of devastating consequences for the health and well-being of much of Iraq's civilian population. The sanctions were criticized as a violation of international human rights (Kozal, 2000); as a weapon of mass destruction that prevented Iraq "from satisfying its most basic humanitarian needs" (Gordon, 2002, p. 43); and as being responsible for "the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history" (Mueller & Mueller, 1999, p. 51). Empirical data show that sanctions contributed significantly to the decline of Iraq's health care system, once among the most advanced in the Middle East (von Sponeck, 2002; Popal, 2000; Pilger, 2000; UNICEF, 1998). Child malnutrition, disease, and child/infant mortality increased sharply in Iraq in the 1990s under the sanctions regime, while food self-sufficiency declined (Pellett, 2000; Abergavenny, 2000; Ascherio, et al., 1992; Garfield & Leu, 2000; Wareham, 2000; Garfield, 1999a; Pape, 1997). Despite these dramatic consequences, the issue of economic sanctions in Iraq has received only limited attention. Since the imposition of sanctions in 1990, social work scholars have largely ignored these alarming events, and the larger social science community has produced few articles on this topic. A literature review reveals that most academic research on sanctions comes from the health professions and, to a lesser extent, political science. Reports from humanitarian and non-governmental organizations also form a key body of literature on the topic of sanctions against Iraq. The lack of attention paid to Iraq by the academy in general is troubling; the silence on sanctions by social work is especially disturbing given the profession's stated commitment to address injustice and oppression at home and abroad. In this case, silence by social work scholars is notable on two main issues confronting Iraq's civilian population: 1) internal policies, specifically Iraqi government repression and the general lack of "democracy"; and, 2) external policies, namely economic sanctions promoted by the United Nations. Both contributed to pervasive oppression and a significant decline in the health and living standards among most Iraqi citizens. This paper focuses on the latter issue: the contradiction between social work's emphasis on eliminating conditions of injustice and the reality of the profession's silence about one of the world's greatest humanitarian crises in at least the past decade. The neglect of such issues in the social work literature, because they occur in the global arena and may be seen as outside the purview of social work educators, highlights the parochial nature of U.S. social work. Further, silence on key global problems, especially those dealing with overtly "political" issues, reinforces the false notion that politics--especially on the international stage--has little bearing on the social work profession, education, and research. …