BAGHDAD: On a shelf in the corner of the small, cluttered Baghdad studio are the clay figures of seven women. Each is bent double under the crushing weight of a large stone block, and etched on each block in English are the days of the week.

The figures are an attempt by Iraq’s greatest sculptor, Mohammad Ghani, to make sense of the UN sanctions imposed on his country 12 years ago.

“This is about the weight of the embargo on Iraqi women,” he said. “I have seen the suffering of the women in hospitals. It has lasted for days, for weeks, for years.”

Another series of small sculptures in bronze shows a line of women, again bent double, their faces empty, hollow spaces, queuing before a closed wooden door.

“These are families without men, waiting for medicine. This is what the embargo means for women and children,” he said.

Many more figures in the studio show hunched women, all without faces, some with babies reaching up to feed from dry breasts.

But despite Ghani’s international reputation, his work on the sanctions has not been shown in public in Iraq. His cowering, pained figures present an image that is perhaps too powerless for a regime obsessed with military might.

“Maybe these will be shown one day in the future. For now they are a document of what has happened to our people,” Ghani said.

The sanctions, which were imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, have had a considerable impact on Iraq and have triggered debate over whether they hurt the regime or its civilian population more.

Several reports from the UN have shown a marked increase in child mortality and the near-collapse of Iraq’s healthcare system. In a country where every aspect of life is tightly controlled by Saddam Hussein’s government, Ghani has enjoyed rare freedoms.

Many artists have been forced to feed the suffocating personality cult built around the Iraqi leader, but Ghani has kept considerable independence. He has produced vast monuments, commissioned by the state, but never once an image of the president.

The city of Baghdad is replete with monumental sculptures. Nearly all are an integral part of the personality cult that eulogises President Saddam, Iraq’s leader for 23 years.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.