​A vicious cocktail of addiction, extremism, state failure and unbearably hot summers has turned Basra into a powder keg.

​In a tennis court-size hall, dozens of young men sway to the rhythms of a Shia eulogy singer. Red and blue lighting bathes their shirtless torsos and murals of Imam Hussain in purple, and ceiling fans don’t do enough to combat the 45-degree Celsius (113 F) heat of the night.
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This communal Shia mourning ritual was banned under Saddam Hussein. But these rave-like self-flagellation sessions, during which Shia Muslims hit their backs, chests, and heads in a trance-like state for several hours, are now a nightly occurrence in Basra. The practice memorialises the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, Hussain, whose death galvanised the emergence of Shia Islam.

Those attending this Hussainiya are sober, but not all of Basra is this pious. For Ibrahim, the ritual is a way to escape the crushing reality of life in this sweltering, dangerous city – and to stay away from crystal meth, the other thing that used to help.

On a hot summer day in downtown Baghdad when the temperature reached 45 degrees Celsius, Ahmed Saad, 10, stood on the sidewalk of the al-Rasheed Street, selling bottled water and small bags of ice cubes to passers-by and nearby shop-owners.

Saad wakes up every morning in the poor al-Fadhil neighborhood in the Iraqi capital to work to earn money for his family.

It is not uncommon to see underage girls and boys, such as Saad, selling goods in Baghdad's crowded streets and markets, pushing carts to deliver goods, or unloading the trucks.

This is just part of the rising child labor problem in the war-torn Iraq, where the number of children forced to work is increasing due to the decline in Iraqi families' incomes caused by the political chaos and economic woes. ​