Iran war is forcing families to choose between school or survival
Students arrive at a school in a floating village on the Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia [AP Photo]
Sou Sreynich dreams of becoming a teacher. But she knows she’s far behind.
The 13-year-old first entered a classroom at 10, an age when most Cambodian children already have been in school for years. Her mother waited until she was old enough to swim, fearing the boat to school could capsize — a decision familiar to many parents on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia.
Now, the price of gasoline has spiked because of the Iran war, an additional burden. Unlike outright school closures during COVID-19, the Iran war’s impact on education is less visible. But it is falling first and hardest on the poorest families. Soaring fuel prices are making it more expensive for children and teachers to get to school, and for governments to fund education as national budgets come under strain.
On the lake, getting anywhere has always meant navigating the water. Climate change is making it harder, with increasingly unpredictable floods and droughts. Teachers at her school say 10 students have drowned over the years.
If the war continues, it could push up to 23.4 million more children like Sreynich into poverty by the end of the year, according to a recent United Nations Children’s Fund report. About 80% of those children would be in Africa and Asia.
Most mornings, a gas-powered boat chugs through Kampong Prahok, steered by students often no older than those climbing aboard. They pull up alongside floating homes, as peers in crisp uniforms clamber aboard, careful to keep their backpacks dry.
Like most on Tonle Sap, Sreynich’s family relies on fishing to survive. They earn some money picking chili peppers and gutting fish for others. Rising fuel prices because of the Iran war mean the family can’t afford to travel to deeper waters where fish are more plentiful.
When money is tight, Sreynich skips a day or two of school to work alongside her parents. She dreads every absence. “I want to complete my studies,” she said.
Vulnerable children most at risk
For families already living on the edge, the war’s ripple effects are forcing difficult choices: whether to pay for food, fuel, rent and electricity, or keep every child in school.
“The Iran war is likely going to force millions of children out of school and could force millions of children to make the decision not to enroll in the first place,” said Sabrina Hervey of the Qatar-based Education Above All Foundation.
Some children in Southeast Asia are dropping out of school to work.
Ly, 16, and her sister Nhi, 13, two of nine children from a fishing family on Vietnam’s rocky northern coast, have long drifted in and out of school as the family struggled to make ends meet.
They are identified by their first names only because of Vietnamese laws protecting vulnerable minors.
Their father lost his fishing job after the war pushed diesel prices so high that boat owners could not afford to go out to sea. Already burdened by debt, the family was surviving on his odd jobs. It wasn’t enough to keep all nine children fed and in school.
The girls dropped out of school and moved to Vietnam’s capital Hanoi to work long hours in a restaurant, where they were exposed to sharp tools, hot surfaces and heavy lifting.
For 13-year-old Nhi it was also illegal because of child labor laws.
In April, the Hanoi-based nonprofit Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation intervened and the two returned to school.
The war’s impact has unfolded slowly but is devastating, said Michael Brosowski with the foundation.
When families reach a financial breaking point, they tend to go into triage — keeping some children enrolled while pulling others out to work, he said. The children not in school are far more vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking and homelessness.
In Cambodia, everything already costs more on Tonle Sap since supplies have to be brought in by boat.
Iran war disrupts education worldwide
Developing countries reliant on imported energy have been the most exposed to disruptions from the war. Rising fertilizer costs and falling remittances also are straining these smaller economies.
The war is threatening years of progress in education and poverty reduction in Bangladesh, whose economy already was under strain.
Pressure on the government’s finances, driven by rising costs for fuel and subsidies, could leave it with less money to spend on health care and education, warned a report by the U.N. Development Programme.
In some South Asian nations, girls are likely to be affected more because families tend to prioritize sons, said Arshad Malik of the nonprofit Save the Children International. Economic hardships could mean more girls dropping out of school and an increase in child marriages, he said.
South Asia accounts for 45% of the world’s child brides, the highest share of any region, according to UNICEF. ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL, KAMPONG PRAHOK, MDT/AP
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The first rule of the study of history – context context context. Policies do not simply poof! Jump out of the tall black hat like a white rabbit pulled out by its ears.
Marshal a five-star U.S. Army general, served as Army Chief of Staff during World War II, and one of the principal architects of Allied military strategy. He became Secretary of State in 1947, where he proposed the European Recovery Program that became known as the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan worked in conjunction with the Containment Policy – the Two legs of Truman’s strategic post war Foreign Policy which produced the fruits according to Ron Paul – the US has military bases in more than 80 countries! According to Democracy NOW (a socialist anti-Israel noise) the US has over 750 military bases across the world.
The first rule of the study of history – context context context. Policies do not simply poof jump out of the tall hat like a rabbit pulled out by its ears. Post war Europe – utterly destroyed. US industrial might supplied the Allies that European civil war oil, gas, materials and equipment! Who now would buy American goods? Then came the utter shock of the fall of China to Communism in ’49. The Marshall Plan (as a consequence) traded US military bases stationed in all countries which accepted this US aid to rebuilt. Thereafter the NATO alliance forged to restrict the influence of the Soviets! The first rule of US strategic foreign policy from Washington’s farewell address to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 – other countries follow US dollar diplomacy. Monroe Doctrine, dollar diplomacy, Bretton Woods, post-1945 security architecture. Every great power does this (Rome, Britain), but the U.S. version – reflects like a mirror – the unmatched industrial and financial engine after 1945.
Consequently, while personally my politics rejects US involvement with Europe – especially its Government creation of monopolies – from tea to Central Banking. Wilson’s passage of the Central Bank which tied the US economy to Europe prior to the outbreak of WWI – directly contributed to the US joining the Allied alliance due to the debts owed to the US. Bureaucrats unilaterally made these decisions without any hindrance over overwatch by the 3 Constitutional Branches of Government. The post-Civil War Greenback restriction (National Banking Acts) perversely favored Northern industrial and banking elites—the Robber Barons.
After the ’29 Wall Street Collapse, the Fed duplicated the error made by Congress post Civil War and reduced the money supply by some 33%! Clearly the Fed bureaucraps not ignorant that the post Civil War restriction of the Greenback currencies established the Robber Barons – together with their monopolies! Actions set off their set –chain reaction domino effect — like a rock thrown into the pond produces ripples\consequences. The Fed restriction of the money supply forced FDR to a semi-fiat currency where gold sold at a fixed unchanging price. John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, implies a strong similarity to collectivization under Stalin’s Communist state-enforced policy between 1928 and 1940 that forced peasants to give up private farms and join large collective farms (kolkhozy) to increase agricultural output for industrialization. Both state-directed socialism, as witnessed through the Agricultural monopolies established by Washington.
Mass distortions that produced unintended hardship and long-term structural damage, which permanently destroyed the Homestead Act of 1862. Washington under FDR duplicated the European tradition of establishment Corporate monopolies. Later the Supreme Court ruled that Corporations qualify as people! This ruling, a legal fiction, permits those Washington establishment corporate monopolies to operate with constitutional protection by dominating the revolving door non elected Federal bureaucracies.
Just as its post Civil War “Carpet Baggers” bureaucrats attempted to destroy the Rights of States to bureaucratically regulate trade and commerce within the States. The 14th Amendment (1868) exposes: to the victors go the spoils. It compares to the post 9/11 Patriot Act in its scope! As a legal crowning achievement: it nationalized the Bill of Rights and created the “corporations as people” loophole. Both – deliberate bureaucratic expansions of federal power that eroded the Constitution’s State Republic federalism. The Supreme Court has never overturned this vile Santa Clara fiction or the broader “corporate personhood” doctrine; it has repeatedly deferred. However, perhaps the collapse of Roe vs Wade the start of reducing the Federal debt by means of restoring States Rights to bureaucratically regulate intra-State trade & commerce.
Truman took America to war in Korea through a Chapter VII UN decree – this violated the terms of the US Constitution and all US Presidents have ignored (to paraphrase Bush) that God Damn scrap of paper. As if ‘police actions’ addressed in the language of the Constitution. Interesting that the US Supreme Court has failed to weigh in on the merits/demerits of Executive ‘police actions’.
Washington and Jefferson rejected copying the ways of European governments specifically in Central Banking – government established monopolies – which so corrupts the American society today. FDR’s socialism has its economic consequences visible through the post Cold War Democrapic Socialist Party today. Washington and Jefferson rejected copying European government models precisely to avoid central banks and corporate monopolies that corrupt society. Wilson’s Fed (1913), Lincoln’s bond-financing and greenback policies, FDR’s New Deal, the Supreme Court’s Santa Clara fiction, and Reconstruction’s Carpet Bagger overreach all extended the same trajectory. Truman’s Korea (UNSC Resolution 83) bypassed the Constitution’s declaration-of-war clause and the War Powers Resolution; every president since has treated “police actions” as executive authority. The Supreme Court has never weighed in on the merits of those police actions or struck down the 14th Amendment corporate loophole.
The Confederate cause of States Rights, ((while the issue of slavery – enslaved the emotions of post Civil War Americans to this day)), Lincolns’ interpretation of the Constitutional Commerce Clause an utter abomination comparable to him sneaking his male lover into the White House! The industrial revolution defines the Civil War far more than does the issue of slavery; Lincoln paid for his rape of the South through forcing banks to hold Treasury bonds – which set the stage for Wilson’s Xmas Eve rump-Congress surprise!
Russia’s Crimean War defeat caused the Tzar to likewise switch his economy away from a feudal agricultural based economy to an industrial based economy in the 1860s. This action likewise resulted in 4 Russian civil wars in 1905 and twice in 1917, followed by the White counter revolution. Both Stalin and Mao industrialized their economies! Post WWII, America basically the only industrialized economy on the Planet still standing … other than Stalin’s USSR. The Cold War ensued in recognition of this fact. During the Ike Presidency Britain & France attempted to illegally seize the Suez Canal from Nasser. Had they succeeded London and Paris would dominate the balance of power in the Middle East.
There defeat in Egypt caused the PM to resign, and France under de Gaulle in 1966 left NATO! A year later the Israeli shocking victory caused these 2nd rate powers to attempt a rewrite of history and demand that the Jewish State “genie” return back to its trivial post ’48 borders. London switched to a pro Arab alliance by in 1939 with Chamberlain’s White Paper which effectively annulled the League Mandate to establish a Jewish National home in Palestine.
Trump 1.0 derided European less than 2% participation in NATO and European Capitals in their turn mocked him. The post 2023 Gaza War excludes the UN Britain and France and Russia as partners in the “Board of Peace” during Trump 2.0. Actions have consequences and a definite shift away from post USSR Soviet communism collapse and toward a different set of ‘target allies’ perhaps best describes’ Trump 2.0 America First foreign policy of follow the US Dollar diplomacy.