Chao also visits Iraq police academy, orphanage and women's center

By Kathryn McConnell
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao on a two-day trip to Iraq inaugurated a career and training center in Baghdad and visited the city's police academy and an orphanage.

The secretary also visited a center for women's rights in Hilla, according to a January 29 Labor Department news release.

The training center is the first of several to be operated in major cities around the country by Iraq's restored Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, according to a January 28 release. The center's classrooms and computer labs will help workers gain marketable skills, the release said.

"Increasing employment is a key element to stabilizing democracy in Iraq," Chao said.

The Labor release noted that in recent months the department has hosted Iraqi employment officials including visits to "one-stop" U.S. career centers to observe career development programs.

Iraq's labor ministry also administers the country's social security fund and welfare programs for children, the elderly, widows and persons with disabilities, the release said. During her visit to the Al Wazirya Orphanage in Baghdad, where she presented educational gifts from her department, Chao said she felt "confidence and optimism" the children will grow up "to see a brighter future of peace and opportunity."

At the police academy, Chao was accompanied by Chuck Canterbury, president of the U.S. Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), and Jim Pasco, the group's executive director. Canterbury said the FOP will send some of its members to Iraq to assist in training Iraqi police officers, according to another January 28 release.

Approximately 170,000 people are working as part of Iraq's security forces, more than the number of Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) forces serving in the country, the release noted. Thousands more are in or awaiting training, it said.

Speaking of the income-generating Fatima Al-Zahra Women's Center, which the United States helped establish, Chao said it "and others like it are an important key to Iraq's progress toward a democracy in which women are respected and included in every sector of society."

The center will provide nutrition, sewing, cooking, and English classes; offer literacy, small farming and democracy programs, and teach computer skills.

The center "provides an opportunity for women to reclaim their freedoms and focus on their futures as leaders," the release said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)