ReliefWeb

Contents

• One million IDPs and Returnees Lack Critical Civil Documentation

• Concerns about Water Scarcity/Food Security

• Explosive Ordnance Contamination

• Displacement Index

Progress Made on Issuance of Civil Documentation, Challenges Remain

In October 2021, the Protection Cluster published a report analyzing the Right to Identity and Civil Documentation in Iraq.
Four years after the conclusion of formal military operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), it is estimated that over 1 million IDPs and returnees in Iraq remain without at least one key identity or civil document, including over 500,000 individuals who are missing two or more documents.1 As a result of the conflict, many documents were lost, damaged or destroyed, or confiscated by security actors; some affected persons only possess documents which were issued in ISIL-controlled areas and are not legally recognized by the authorities either in federal Iraq or in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). The right to a legal identity is recognized both in international law and in Iraqi domestic law.2 The reissuance of civil documentation is a top priority in the collective effort to secure durable solutions to displacement, as this will facilitate affected families’ freedom of movement, access to basic public services, and other rights of all Iraqi citizens.

Some notable progress has been made in reissuing civil documentation over the past year; per a recent report from UN Refugees (UNHCR) in Iraq, between January to August 2021, legal protection actors provided a total of 29,678 IDPs and returnees with legal assistance, resulting in 38,284 civil documents being issued. UNHCR and its partners also support mobile missions by government officials to IDP camps, informal sites, and urban areas with large IDP population groups to receive and process applications for civil documents and to issue civil documentation without the need for IDPs to travel to their area of origin.