IRAQ’S FIRST CENSUS IN 27 YEARS: Benefits for population, problems for men who secretly married a second wife

By Al Menasa staff in Baghdad

On the morning of Wednesday, November 20, the streets of Baghdad were almost empty of people and vehicles, after the Iraqi government imposed a two-day curfew in order to conduct Iraq’s first population census in 27 years. According to the Iraqi government, this event is an important step in understanding demographic and social development in Iraq and to determine the population’s future needs.

Ammar Masoud, 20, a sports student from eastern Baghdad, was among the volunteers who helped take the census and collect data.

“The houses in the area were distributed to us, and I got 160 houses in the Nahrawan district,” he explains. “We were provided with iPads with a special application that contained electronic forms to fill in, such as the number of family members, age, gender, births and deaths, as well as data on the durable goods in each house. Every time we finished filling out a form, a new form would be opened.”

Despite the use of modern technology, the process was not without challenges. “I was very scared on the first day and hesitant to knock on people’s doors,” Massoud said. “I was afraid that they wouldn’t cooperate or that there would be a problem that I wouldn’t know how to deal with. So we worked as groups to relieve the tension and control the situation.” 

And the experience was actually fine, Massoud says. “I knocked on the first door at night, and an old man came out to us hesitantly. I told him, ‘we’re the census takers’ and he started laughing. He said: ‘I have 25 people in my house, come and count us in the morning!'”

Some locals were hesitant about giving such a lot of information, particularly about their household goods. The Ministry of Planning had previously explained that including data on goods in homes — like washing machines or fridges — is a good measure of the level of poverty and a way to identify areas most in need. 

“But some people refused to provide accurate information about their assets for fear of affecting their salaries or pensions,” Massoud says.

Karar Qassim, 21, another of the census takers says he ran into some strange situations.

“I knocked on the door of the first house and a young man answered. I had to tell him the house was actually registered in a woman’s name. He got really angry and started shouting, ‘why did my wife register the house in her name?’ Then he went back in and started shouting at his wife,” Qassim recounts. “Our supervisor had to come and explain to him that it was just a matter of his wife providing the information and that’s why it was registered in her name.”

However that was unusual Qassim says. “Most householders welcomed us and invited us into their homes, offering us tea or water, and were very cooperative.”

Another census taker, Safaa al-Daraji, says the Iraqi desire to provide hospitality actually made the work difficult at times. “A man in his 60s came out and insisted we go in for lunch. Despite our initial refusal, he insisted so much that we did. He welcomed us so warmly and offered us a full lunch, then tea. We only managed to continue the census after lunch,” al-Daraji said, laughing.

Iraq has seen a lot of internal migration and displacement due to conflicts and also climate change. That’s why al-Daraji believes the census is so important.

The government can now create new plans for the country, based on “accurate results that are closer to reality,” he argues.

The last comprehensive population census in Iraq was conducted in 1987. Another was conducted in 1997 but did not include the Kurdish-majority provinces in the north of the country because at that time, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, did not control them.

Fatima Salman, a Baghdad resident, actually remembers the 1997 census. “I was just a child but I remember how the census takers came to our village and how they even entered the pens to count the animals after counting the people,” she recalls.

This week, she heard knocking on a number of doors simultaneously. “I opened my door to find a group of young men on our street. I asked a young woman standing in front of my neighbor’s door: ‘Do you need my ID?’ But I wasn’t part of her sample so I closed the door again and waited until one of the others came to get my information,” she explains the process.

There were a lot of serious discussions about the census as it may well have important economic and political implications. But the topic also became a subject of jokes and memes on social media.

One joke went like this: If there is a new car outside the house, then that means there are only two people inside. But if there is an old, battered car and it’s big, you don’t even need to knock on the door. There are at least 18 people in there.

There were also videos that mocked the reluctance of some males to mention their mother’s names for fear of looking emasculated as well as clips that discovered men who’d taken a second wife, and therefore had a second household, without their first wife’s knowledge. They were in big trouble, comedians said. There were also jokes about all the people who were reluctant to disclose how many cars or home appliances they owned. Even in villages, farmers didn’t want to tell anyone how much livestock they had for tax reasons or because benefits might be cut.