Iraq Issues - 2024

Disputes - international

Iraq-Iran: Iraq's lack of a maritime boundary with Iran prompts jurisdiction disputes beyond the mouth of the Shatt al Arab in the Persian Gulf

Iraq-Kuwait: undemarcated maritime boundary; Kuwait has called on Iraq to resolve the domestic legal status of the 2012 Kuwait-Iraq Agreement to regulate maritime navigation in Khor Abdullah and ensure that the agreement remains in force 

Iraq-Turkey: Turkey maintains a military presence in northern Iraq to combat the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) terrorist group; it periodically conducts air strikes and has conducted large military operations involving thousands of troops in 2007, 2011, and 2018, and smaller-scale operations in 2021 and 2022 

Refugees and internally displaced persons

refugees (country of origin): 7,864 (West Bank and Gaza Strip) (mid-year 2022); 273,258 (Syria), 8,575 (Iran), 8,091 (Turkey) (2023)

IDPs: 1.142 million (displacement in central and northern Iraq since January 2014) (2023)

stateless persons: 47,253 (2022); note - in the 1970s and 1980s under SADDAM Husayn's regime, thousands of Iraq's Faili Kurds, followers of Shia Islam, were stripped of their Iraqi citizenship, had their property seized by the government, and many were deported; some Faili Kurds had their citizenship reinstated under the 2006 Iraqi Nationality Law, but others lack the documentation to prove their Iraqi origins; some Palestinian refugees persecuted by the SADDAM regime remain stateless

Trafficking in persons

tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List — Iraq does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so; more traffickers were convicted and officials improved oversight of recruitment agencies in Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR); Iraq implemented an action plan to address recruitment or use of children in armed conflict and developed another action plan to prevent recruitment or use of children by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF); however, the government did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts, compared with the previous reporting period, to expand its anti-trafficking capacity; officials identified fewer trafficking victims and the Kurdistan Regional Government did not report any enforcement or victim data; deficient procedures, and some officials’ limited understanding of trafficking, continued to prevent some victims from receiving protection services; some victims continued to receive inappropriate punishment for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked; the government lacked adequate protection services for victims of all forms of trafficking and did not have shelters for adult males or LBGTQI+ victims; therefore, Iraq was downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List (2023)

trafficking profile: human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Iraq, as well as Iraqi’s abroad; insecurity throughout Iraq increased the population’s vulnerability to trafficking; more than a million Iraqis remained internally displaced as a result of ISIS, and as of March 2023, more than 260,000 Syrian refugees were displaced in Iraq; refugees and IDPs face heightened risk of forced labor and sex trafficking, and women and girls in IDP camps with family ties to ISIS faced potential sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, and abuse by security and military officials; criminal gangs continued to force women into prostitution and children to beg and sell and transport drugs and weapons; Iraqi refugees in Jordan are vulnerable to labor trafficking; thousands of women and children who escaped ISIS captivity in 2015-2019 remain highly vulnerable to exploitation; children remain vulnerable to forcible recruitment or use by armed groups operating in Iraq, including ISIS, tribal forces, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and non-PMF Iran-backed militias; Iraqi, Iranian, and Syrian women and girls, as well as LGBTQI+ persons in the IKR and federal Iraq are particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking; traditional practices, including fasliya—the exchange of family members to settle tribal disputes—and forced child and “temporary” marriages also place women and girls at increased risk of trafficking within Iraq; some men and women from Asia and Africa who migrate—both legally and illegally—to Iraq are subjected to forced labor as construction workers, security guards, cleaners, handymen, and domestic workers; the IKR continued to be a destination for trafficking victims primarily from South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Philippines, and neighboring countries; some foreign migrants recruited for work in other countries in the region are forced, coerced, or deceived into working in Iraq and the IKR (2023)