Are Young Women really racing to Syria's front lines to wage sex jihad?

Original Source: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/09/26/sorry_the_tunisian_sex_jihad_is_a_fraud

It's the story that launched 1,000 headlines. And it's not hard to see why: Tunisian Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou announced last week that Tunisian women were traveling to Syria to wage "sex jihad," where they were having sex with "20, 30, [or] 100" militants, before returning pregnant to Tunisia.

There's only one problem: There's no evidence it's true. The Tunisian Interior Ministry has so far failed to provide any further information on the phenomenon, and human rights activists and journalists have been unable to find any Tunisian woman who went to Syria for this purpose.

"Everything I've heard were very broad allegations that didn't really have all the features of a serious reporting about the case," said Amna Guellali, the Tunisia researcher for Human Rights Watch. "All I have is very sparse, very little information, and I think that's true for a lot of people working in the human rights community, in addition to reporters."

According to Guellali, the political context of the statement could shed light on why the interior minister chose to make this accusation now. The Tunisian government has been under fire for allegedly asking adult women for authorization from their husbands or fathers before they travel to certain countries in the Middle East -- Ben Jeddou was justifying any restrictions by saying that the government was attempting to prevent women from embarking on "sex jihad" in Syria. The interior minister has also made the fight against extremist Salafi groups a centerpiece of his term in office. Suggesting that Tunisian Salafi women are sleeping with dozens of Syrian rebels could be another way to discredit them.

Reports of Tunisian women engaging in "sex jihad" in Syria have ping-ponged around the media for months, though the interior minister's statement is the first time it has been given an official imprimatur. As journalist Sana Saeed catalogs, the first reports appeared on Lebanese new channel Al Jadeed and in the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat, which cited a fatwa by famed Saudi cleric Mohammed al-Arefe justifying the practice. Arefe, however, subsequently denied that he had done so, saying that "no sane person" would sanction such a thing.

Pro-Assad media have been only too eager to advance the idea of "sex jihad" as a way to tar their opponents. Syrian state television ran an interview with a 16-year-old girl named Rawan Kaddah in which she admitted to the practice. The Syrian opposition, however, denounced the program as staged and blasted the regime for exploiting children in such a way.

The only real evidence of women embarking on "sex jihad," comes not from Syria but from Tunisia's Chaambi Mountains, an area in the west of the country that has often been the site of clashes between the military and jihadists. Tunisian security forces there arrested several girls who were allegedly involved in the practice. Guellali said that she spoke to the mother of an 18-year-old female who was involved -- the mother said that a woman close to the Tunisian militant group Ansar al-Sharia got her daughter tangled up in a network of girls in the area.

But the scope of the problem -- and whether it is related to Syria in any way -- remains a complete mystery.

"It's a bit disturbing that we have these kind of declarations and then there is no follow-up," said Guellali. "[The authorities] threw out this information that they had several cases of women coming back pregnant, but there is no tracking of the cases either by the Ministry of Women or the Ministry of Interior. And they won't give any further information."

Syrian Women Refugees stitch together trust and hope

Original Source : http://community.feministing.com/2013/04/17/syrian-women-refugees-stitch-together-trust-and-hope/

Researcher: Avantika Lal

The sound of women laughing and making jokes are all one can hear standing outside the Tailoring Workshop container at the Women and Girls Oasis in Zaatari refugee camp located in the Jordanian Governorate of Mafraq, close to the Syrian border.
It is estimated that more than 70,000 people have been killed and more than three million displaced both within and outside of Syria since the uprising against President al-Assad began in March 2011.[i] This week, the heads of five United Nations agencies called on political leaders to meet their responsibility to the people of Syria and to the future of the region.[ii] According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 432,263 Syrian refugees had fled to Jordan as of 15 April.[iii] Half of them are now living at the Zaatari camp.[iv]
The Tailoring workshop takes place in an open area of the camp surrounded by nine large white port containers where women take part in various stages of clothing production. Opening the door of one of the containers, one enters a brightly lit space where some smiling women sit behind eight sewing machines working on colourful fabrics. There are four rows of sewing machines, two in each row. The remaining empty space is occupied by other women waiting for their turn to get behind the sewing machines and finish the pieces they are working on.



“My husband is an injured military defector. He cannot work so I took it upon myself to help provide for him and my three kids. By mere chance, a woman told me about UN Women’s oasis and the tailoring workshop and here I am. It is the best thing that ever happened to me since we fled Syria three months ago,” says Fatima, beaming while Hajar nods her head in agreement.
At the Syrian refugee camp of Zaatari, UN Women Jordan is supporting the establishment of a “safe space” named “Women and Girls Oasis.” The “cash for work” programme enables Syrian women refugees who are professional tailors and hairdressers to work six hours a day in the workshops and earn a living. The tailors sew newborn outfits for babies that are delivered at the hospitals operating within the camp.
Hajar, another participant, opens up and speaks with incredible candor about the hardships she has faced: “I have been through a lot and did not expect my life to turn out the way it did. I fled Syria with my five children because I received threats on my son’s life. I left everything behind, my house, my husband and all my belongings and embarked on a trip to the unknown. I reached the camp already depressed with very few words to exchange with others. At some point, my words got stifled by sadness, the smile left my face and tears became a permanent companion.”
However, Hajar says her grief started to gradually dissipate after learning about the Tailoring Workshop. As a professional tailor, she became involved, in the activities taking place in the Oasis, along with some 300 women and teenage girls. They do tailoring, hairdressing, drawing, English classes, mosaic and handcrafts as well as learning gymnastics.
The impact of the Oasis goes far beyond a mere source of income for these women. The growing bonds and trust formed with the Oasis’ staff and other women have encouraged many to speak out about taboo subjects such as gender-based violence in the private sphere. They exchange stories, and no longer shy away from sharing their experiences about psychological and emotional violence they face in their homes.
The Oasis has allowed refugee women to take advantage of this safe haven and experience a different and unexpected role in the camp’s social life, as well as within their own family structure. They have become the breadwinners and their contribution to their households is well recognized by their husbands, as Fatima indicates. The Oasis is considered an intervention that has brought smiles back to the faces of Fatima and Hajar.
“We have hope now! We feel safe, and are looking forward to the day when we go back to a peaceful and stable Syria,” Hajar concludes.

Against all Odda: FemaleReporters lead in Syria

Original Source

Researcher- Hansa Rochlani

Still audible through the increasingly sectarian cacophony of Syria’s ongoing civil war, a small but influential group of Syrian and foreign women are telling the stories of the country’s destruction in unique and meaningful ways. Present in all aspects of the conflict, women are penning the history of Syria.
From the very beginnings of the initial and peaceful opposition to Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist regime, Syrian women have played a powerful role. Samar Yazbek, a female Syrian writer and journalist—herself an Alawite, a member of a religious group traditionally associated with the regime—was among the women who initiated oppositional activism. Women, she says, were among the first who went out and protested: “They organized these protests, formed coordinations and organizational bodies.”
According to Yazbek, as the peaceful protests turned to armed resistance and then into civil war, the role of women in the conflict changed. “Syrian women didn’t pick up arms, but kept helping the revolution by documenting violations, organizing, writing and in the media.”
Nour Kelze, a young photographer from Aleppo, is one of these women. An English teacher before the revolution, she began documenting the revolution with her cellphone before being given a camera by a professional photographer. She now spends her days on the front lines as photo stringer for Reuters.

A female Kurdish fighter from the Popular Protection Units (YPG) points her weapon as she takes up a position to guard an area in Aleppo in June. (Nour Kelze/Reuters)

The visible role of women in the early stages of the uprising is what drew American reporter Anna Day to the conflict, which she has been covering for two years. She says her involvement was mobilized by her original connections with women in the resistance via social media. “It was exciting, and as a young woman myself, I was incredibly inspired and felt privileged to tell the story of my peers in Syria fighting for their rights.”
Historically, Syria has a reputation for being a more equal society for women than other Arabic-speaking countries. This attitude, combined with the absence of sexual violence like that faced by female reporters covering Egypt and of the inherently male-dominated and militarily embedded reporting of the Afghan and Iraqi wars, means the Syrian conflict has drawn an unprecedented number of female foreign reporters.
For some, like journalist Jenan Moussa, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, or American reporter Clarissa Ward, the conflict has brought them wide acclaim. Others haven’t been so fortunate. Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin was killed by shelling in Homs during the early days of the war, and just over a year later, Yara Abbas, a prominent female war reporter for Syrian state-owned Al-Ikhbariyah TV, was murdered by sniper fire in the same province.
Armenian-American journalist Lara Setrakian, founder of the digital media project Syria Deeply, says gender is not a disadvantage in reporting in the dangerous and unforgiving environment. “I think at this point it is a fallacy to assume that women cannot approach rebels or even rebel commanders in the field. I don’t think there is any gender barrier to accessing people involved in this conflict.”
In fact, Setrakian says, women bring a unique approach to the story. She cites female reporters’ unwavering dedication to the ongoing conflict and says those she works with are “extremely patient and diligent.” Comparing the Syrian conflict to a patient to a chronic illness, she says this approach is essential. “You don’t just leave the patient while it’s breathing. You pay attention. The women journalists I’ve seen working in Syria have that kind of consistency and ethic.”
In conflict, women often bear the brunt of tremendous amounts of suffering while attempting to maintain family life—and Syria is no exception. For Yazbek, the most tragic stories are those of women who struggle to preserve a normal home existence despite the violence. “Most important are the women who still live out a normal life under the shelling,” she says. Women reporters are usually those who represent female civilians’ stories. Yazbek and Day try to give these women a voice in their reporting.
The conflict has also brought suffering to the Syrian journalists and activists covering it. Last month Human Rights Watch released a report detailing the torture suffered by 10 female activists in Syria. Accordingly, for Yazbek, Syria is no longer her physical home—she has been living in exile in Paris since 2011. “I don’t live in a place now, I live in the idea of a country and a revolution. My home is my own head, filled with blood, the cries of children, and with the sound of airplane bombs.”

An image grab taken from the Syrian state TV on May 27 shows Yara Abbas, 26, a reporter for Syria's official television station, Al-Ikhbariyah, who was reported killed while covering an Army assault on the rebel stronghold of Qusayr. (Syrian TV/AFP)

For Kelze, the price of war was physical. In February she was hit by shelling and broke her leg. “The shell hit the wall that I was using as a shelter to cover myself. There was half of a second when I felt like all I could see was black.” She said about the incident: “I tried to stand up when I realized that there was a problem with my leg.” Even in the immediate aftermath of her injury, Kelze’s first instinct was to tell the story: “I kept shouting, ‘Where is my camera?’”
For Western journalists, the impact of covering the conflict has been a desire to find creative ways to tell the story. Frustrated by lack of coverage and the limits of mainstream news, Setrakian left a successful reporting job to start Syria Deeply. The online project compiles news, interviews, social media, and background information to provide a detailed picture of the conflict. “I could see that this was a chronic story. It’s hard to follow, and it’s a very complex crisis. I was reporting to television, radio, and Web, and I could see that across those platforms we still weren’t really capturing the essence of what was happening.” She continues to develop the Syria Deeply platform and hopes to expand it to other news subjects in the future.
Day, shocked by apathy from both news outlets and audiences, has used social media to change the way she tells stories. “I did one experiment where I shared Instagram photos that showed snippets of some of the most haunting stories I covered over the course of an assignment.” Her project created a cohesive narrative arc focused on the civilian catastrophe, she says: “I found this brief but personalized way of telling the story to be effective in piquing the interest of people in my networks that may not follow world politics.”
As the conflict drags well into its third year with little sign of resolution, these dedicated women from varied backgrounds and nations all want to keep working to find new ways to get people to listen.
Each has a different hope for Syria and for herself. Yazbek laments the rise in sectarianism, which she blames on regime strategy. She insists she will return to Syria and be involved in the reconstruction of the country she has sacrificed so much for. Of herself, she says: “I have only one dream: the fall of Bashar.”

Take your potion: A victim speaks about Rape in Syria

Original Source- http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/Take-your-portion-A-victim-speaks-out-about-rape-in-Syria

Alma Abdulrahman is lying gaunt and unable to move anything below her diaphragm in a hospital bed in Amman. Some bedsores have become so deep she’s having surgery tomorrow. Screws hold together her upper vertebrae, and cigarette burns pock her right shoulder. Her voice fades in and out, hoarse from either weakness or morphine.
Six months earlier, she was paralyzed when a regime soldier struck her in the neck with a rifle on a street on the outskirts of Damascus. Now, from a guarded hospital room, she wants to be heard, and what she has to say is deeply disturbing.
Alma Abdulrahman is one of the very few women in the Syrian conflict to speak out about having been raped. While she offered to use her entire name in this story, I’ve used only her first name and a family name because of safety concerns.

Alma Abdulrahman lies paralyzed in a hospital bed in Amman. She says regime forces broke her spine with a rifle.

She has already received severe punishment, she says, as retribution for her role as a battalion commander in the Free Syrian Army. “I served at a very high rank in the army, where I was responsible over men who had to listen to me,” she says.
Unusual for her forthrightness about the rape itself, Abdulrahman is also the rare Syrian woman who has discussed her role in the FSA, which she joined very early in the revolution. Formerly an accountant, she says she rose to the rank of an FSA battalion commander and was in charge of about 15 men at a time. She says she has killed “many, many” men -- at least nine, at her count. With her slim, tall figure, she was sometimes even able to pass as one, she says.
Over the course of a few days in June, Abdulrahman described what she says are the details of her torture via Skype from her hospital bed. It is a series of interviews that almost didn’t happen. Her first, short interview was given to Al-Arabiya on June 6. After this, a person connected to the case told me, a man from the Jordanian government visited her hospital to let the administration know that he was displeased they were treating a “terrorist.” All interviews, including my plans to speak with her, were canceled. Through the cooperation of various medical and social workers in Amman, we were eventually able to connect. While tired, she agreed to speak multiple times through a translator and repeat what she made clear were painful memories.
Her ordeal began on April 29, 2011.
Abdulrahman is from an area in the southern part of Damascus called Al-Midan and had four children at that point. She was living a double life, fighting “during work hours” to hide her FSA world from her husband.
One day in April she had gotten caught up in an incident in which a regime soldier was severely beating a 16-year-old boy at a checkpoint. Sick of the constant brutality, she says, she tried to intervene. This is what led to her own beating and incarceration by the Assad regime.
During dark sessions over a period of 38 days, guards whipped her with a wire, strung her alternatively by her wrists and feet, and injected the crook of her elbow twice a day with a kind of drug that made her feel high, she says. The things Abdulrahman recalls the men saying as they allegedly raped her multiple times were so filthy she is loath to repeat them -- “it’s too dirty and too low” -- although she remembers them saying, “Here is the freedom you wanted” (a phrase similar to ones other women have reported hearing while being raped in Syria). And she can summon up at least one face. And a couple of names.
Within an hour of her arrival at the detention center in Harasta, about 7 miles (12 kilometers) north of Damascus, where she was held in a cell with 20 other women, she says she was roused to consciousness and her torture began. She describes being gang-raped daily by men who smelled strongly of alcohol. Floating in and out of consciousness, she would kick and yell as best she could while lying next to another woman doing the same.
“We were all blindfolded and raped and we would not know who was raping us,” she says, tearing up for the first time in our interview. Before being blindfolded, she could see what she calls the “boss” sit in front of them, teaching them “exactly what to do and say to us.”
“They were ordered to take this one, to take ‘your portion,’” she says. “And they would take it.”
Abdulrahman describes to me how she and one other woman from her colorless cell, college-aged, were usually taken together to another room with no furniture and raped. She remembers clearly the face of one man who tortured her. He was “very, very tan,” she says, “very, very thin,” and balding, she says; he was one of the men who would hit her while she was hung from the ceiling.
Later, her same acquaintance would be afraid to return home after what happened to her. Abdulrahman says she helped arrange for the young women to get surgery that would restore her “virginity” -- a not-uncommon practice or desire for women raped in Syria, from what I’ve learned. In Amman in May, I spoke to a surgeon who had tried to refer a young woman to a gynecologist for similar treatment at her request. (The survivor was too frightened to follow through, the surgeon said.)
Back in the windowless, bare cell with about 20 other women, no one spoke much, Abdulrahman says. They hardly slept. The women “were emotionless,” she says.
Abdulrahman says she knew that at least seven of the other women in her cell were tortured, but doesn’t know about the rest. The women were forcibly folded into tires and beaten, she says. Sometimes they would have salt rubbed into their wounds to maximize the pain, a relatively frequent description of torture in Syria’s war. When asked if she remembers any particular names of the guards in the Harasta center, she says the name “Basel” is one she recalls, and possibly “Mazen.” According to another source, Basel carried out many rapes at the Harasta center. Another name Abdulrahman remembers is Mohamed Rahmoon.
Rahmoon was known to be head of the detention center, according to various Syrian activists I spoke to. Multiple websites have reported that he was kidnapped in April 2012 and found dead in a hospital in July. Abdulrahman has a clear memory of speaking to him the day she was released.
“He reprimanded me,” she says, “for being a part of the revolution.” And with a warning not to repeat what had happened to her, she was released. Whether a bribe was paid this time around, she isn’t sure.
Unlike a man I met recently in Jordan who was held at what appears to be this same Harasta detention center, Abdulrahman was detained clothed. She had on a shirt, jacket, and pants. Mazen, 47, the Syrian refugee I met in Amman in May, said he was held nearly naked in a freezing, underground cell. His detention was in February, he told me, and involved 16 days of being strung by his hands from the ceiling with only his toes touching the floor. He said the 50 men in his cell slept in shifts so a few could sit to sleep at a time. When I met him, he was unable to use his right hand because of the torture. He was willing, however to stand against a wall and demonstrate how he was suspended over a mixture of water and diesel fuel that would make him slip around on his toes.
“I could do this forever,” he joked.
But Abdulrahman isn’t at the point of making jokes yet. What would happen to her after her release would only involve more pain -- it would be just a couple months before her neck bones were broken. First would come a second month-long detention in a government cell in Fir’ Al-Khatib in Damascus in October 2012. The torture continued during this second detention, she says, but not the rape.
The day she nearly died a couple months later, a man -- a friend -- in the FSA using the pseudonym Abu Bakr was shot for having organized an attack at a regime checkpoint. As she was poised over his wounded body, Abdulrahman says, he gave her his prayer beads. It was then that a soldier struck her in the neck with his rifle. She was six or seven months pregnant with her fifth child at the time. (The child would be delivered at nine months in a Syrian hospital via a C-section.)
A series of stays in various hospitals in Syria then Jordan would follow, leading to her eventual rest for now in this particular hospital in Amman, where she recently received the news that her husband, disgusted by her rape and FSA work, was marrying a new wife. Her children, she says, remain with him.
Alma Abdulrahman’s story fits her name -- alma can mean a number of things in Arabic. It can mean “dark” or “black” but it can also refer to a lush kind of tree that is a metaphor for beauty. And the horrors she describes have positioned her to become the face of powerful women survivors in Syria. She says she has fought and killed; she also says she has done it for her country. She says she has endured torture and violation but that she is “capable of standing up against oppression.” Speaking out has been a decision she has made after many months of being told to stay quiet.
“We have to share this with the entire world to show that women are fighters,” she says. “The Arab woman is very strong. All she needs is just a little freedom.”

Behind the Legends: Naziq-Al-Abed

Original Source:http://nadiamuhanna.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/behind-the-legends-naziq-al-abed/

Researcher- Hansa Rochlani

Syria’s revolutionary heroes of the struggle against the Ottomans and the French in the first half of the 20th century have become national symbols for Syrians. Their names are used during the current Syrian revolution against the Assad regime as symbols of national unity and struggle for freedom. 
More than acts of bravery and leadership, the heroes of the past revolution were real people with families, homes, interests and quirks. I looked beyond the textbook tales to find out more about who these key figures really were. I profiled Naziq al-Abed, a revolutionist from Damascus.

Naziq al-Abed (1898-1959)

Our Joan of Arc
Naziq al-Abed was a pioneer for both national independence and women’s rights.
It might be hard to imagine Damascene women in the 1920s – generally perceived as illiterate and cloaked in traditional mlaye (a short skirt and veil) – as freedom fighters. Yet many of them took up both pens and arms in the fight against foreign rule.
Naziq al-Abed, a robust woman with a round face and dark, curious eyes, was one of the most controversial women to partake in the Syrian revolutions against the Ottomans and French. Born in 1898 as the daughter of an aristocrat and an insider in the court of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II, Abed traded the French dance saloons, European tours and luxurious lifestyle that her family maintained, for the battlefield. She was also a passionate feminist, often infuriating the sensibilities of Damascus’s conservative circles.
“She was not like any of her sisters,” Burhan al-Abed, Naziq al-Abed’s third cousin, said. “She was very liberal with a strong character. She was a true rebel.”
Burhan, an anesthesiologist in his nineties, recalled with nostalgia his visits to his cousin’s farm, where he usually found her working in the field or sitting on the floor eating with her fellow workers.
“She was a humble person who loved sports and horseback riding. She used to dress like middle-class Damascenes and avoided accessories and ornaments. She was the only woman at that time who wore trousers and boots and carried a whip,” he said.
Transition to politics
Following her student years, Abed became politically engaged. Although she originally studied agriculture, she worked as a journalist and became a vocal critic of the Ottoman and French policies in her country. In 1919, she led a women’s delegation that discussed the French mandate in Syria with the American King Crane Commission that was tasked with determining the attitudes of Syrians and Palestinians towards the settlement of their territories.
Naziq held anti-colonial views despite her family’s ties to the Ottomans. She came from a prominent Damascene family whose members held important governmental positions during the Ottoman empire. Her father, for example, was the wali (governor) of Mosul and her uncle, Ahmad Izzat, was the aide-de-camp and private advisor to Sultan Abdulhamid.

Many women activists worked with Naziq al-Abed. Together, they formed the Syrian Red Crescent in 1922.

Yet, according to Burhan, her family did not mind Naziq’s political stance, even though she was exiled as a result of it in 1914 and again in 1919.
“Even though the Abed family held important positions in the Ottoman empire, they were proud of their Arab roots,” he said.
When France assumed the mandate of Syria in 1920, Naziq was the only Syrian woman to take up arms and join Youssef al-Azmah, Syria’s then-defence minister, and the military at the Battle of Maysaloun. She is also said to be the only survivor of the battle, which ended in a catastrophic defeat and in the French occupation of Syria.
Newspapers at the time hailed her as “Joan of Arc of the Arabs” and King Faisal named her an honorary general in the Syrian army. Burhan Abed proudly recounted the king’s visit to his family house, based on the story his mother used to tell.
“We served him lemonade,” he said, leafing through a thick, leather-bound book and pointing out the common ancestors between his family and Naziq’s.

Burhan al-Abed, Naziq al-Abed’s third cousin / photo by Adel Samara

Advocate for women
Her ‘liberal’ views about women were less welcomed by her family, Burhan said. Naziq Abed removed her veil several times in public and in front of television cameras. Unlike her sisters, she was unmarried until she was in her forties and until then had lived alone in her farm in the Ghuta, a green area of Damascus fed by natural aqueducts.
“Naziq’s family were very modern and open minded compared to the mentality at that time,” Burhan said. “Even so, they did not always like her behavior. But she did not listen to them. She did what she wanted to do.”
In 1919, Naziq al-Abed established Noor al-Fayyha (Light of Damascus), the first women’s organisation in Syria. She also helped to establish many associations and organisations that advocated women’s rights in Syria and Lebanon. She financed a hospital and was the founder of the Syrian Red Star which, according to Hazim Ba’ale, director of medical services at the Syrian Red Crescent, led to the opening of a women’s branch of the international organisation in Syria in 1922.

Syrian Women Refugees face forced early marriages and restricted mobility: UN Women Report

Original Source-http://www.unwomen.org/2013/06/syrian-women-refugees-face-forced-early-marriages-and-restricted-mobility-un-women-report/

Researcher-  Avantika Lal

20 June 2013, Amman, Jordan — On the occasion of World Refugee Day, UN Women today launched a new programme and released the findings of a new report on gender-based violence among Syrian refugees in Jordan. The report finds that rates of early marriage are strikingly high (one-third are married as children), that restrictions on the mobility of women and girls limit their access to work and aid supplies, and that 83 per cent of Syrian refugees are unaware of services for survivors of violence, which are now limited.
The report, led by UN Women in partnership with the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development and The Queen Zein Al-Sharaf Institute for Development (JOHUD/ ZENID), was commissioned by a joint UN task force, which also includes the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in addition to partner organizations Save the Children International, the International Rescue Committee, the Jordanian Women’s Union, and Un Ponte Per (UPP).

A line of Syrian refugee women, some carrying children, cross into Jordan from southern Syria in February 2013. Photo credit: UNHCR/N. Douad

According to UNHCR, more than 1.6 million Syrians have fled the country’s civil unrest since March 2011 and sought shelter in neighbouring countries, including 472,764 in Jordan (as of 3 June 2013) – a number that is expected to double by year’s end. Since humanitarian relief was initially directed towards refugees based in the Za’atri refugee camp (now home to more than 100,000), UN Women decided to focus the assessment on other communities, where two-thirds of Syrian refugees are currently residing. It targeted urban refugees living in 11 out of Jordan’s 12 governorates (provinces). The findings are based on data collected through questionnaires distributed to 613 refugees including women, girls, boys and men from different households; 34 focus group discussions held in all regions; and 45 in-depth interviews with key informants, community leaders and service providers from all regions.
The report finds widespread child marriage – more than 33 per cent of participants were married when they were still children, and half of all respondents believed that the normal age of marriage for girls is under 18. Many respondents also perceived that the marrying age has further decreased since their displacement to Jordan, as impoverished refugee families seek dowries and one less mouth to feed.
Findings indicate that Syrian refugee women also face major challenges in accessing basic resources and specialized services due to their restricted ability to leave home without a male family member. This makes it harder for women to engage in economic activities, receive education, participate in social activities, or receive aid supplies. One-fifth of girls never even go outside their homes in Syria and displacement has made it even less likely.
The report concludes that the longer the situation of displacement is prolonged, the greater the likelihood of higher rates of child labour for boys and early marriage for girls.

A woman and child at the Za’atri refugee camp, which hosts an estimated 100,000 Syrians displaced by conflict, near Mafraq, Jordan.
Photo credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

The study also reveals the lack of specialized and confidential services available to Syrian women and children who are survivors of gender-based violence, such as psychosocial counseling and legal support, and a lack of knowledge about such services even when available, with an overwhelming 83 per cent of Syrian refugees unaware of any services for survivors in their community. “We both hope and believe that this [report] has revealed a 360-degree picture of where and why necessary services and information have failed to effectively reach their target audiences,” says Dr. Sameera Al-Tuwaijri, UN Women Regional Director for the Arab States, adding that she hopes it “will fuel our collaborative efforts towards meaningful gender equality in humanitarian action.”
Services for survivors
To respond to the lack of services, a new joint programme is being launched today at an event in the refugee community of Zarqa, northeast of Amman. To be implemented by UN Women, UNFPA and UNICEF, in partnership with Jordan’s Ministry of Social Development (MOSD), Ministry of Health (MOH), Family Protection Department (FPD), and other relevant NGOs, the project aims to increase survivors’ access to comprehensive, life-saving protection including health, psychosocial and legal services in three areas in Jordan (Mafraq, Irbid and Zarqa). It will include access to shelters, legal aid and case management, as well as to quality health services, including reproductive health services adapted to age and gender.
The study and this new project build on UN Women’s work with Syrian refugees in Jordan, including economic empowerment and protection initiatives which began in January of this year and are already reaching some 3,000 women and children. They include sexual and gender-based violence protection, information and psycho-social activities such as an abuse hotline which has been used by at least 2009 Syrian refugees, health-awareness sessions attended by 216 women in Madaba, Al-Hussein and Hittin Camps, and recreational activities involving 276 children.
UN Women is also supporting vocational training and income-generating activities for urban Syrian refugee women in the Al-Hussein, Der-Allah, Hittin and Irbid camps, where at least 186 women have attended training courses in skills as diverse as computers, to soap-making and hair-dressing. Another 300 women at the Za’atari refugee camp have taken part in tailoring workshops and a cash-for-work programme to sew baby outfits for new mothers at camp hospitals.
Since September 2012, UN Women has also been part of a Regional Response Plan, which now involves 13 UN agencies and 17 NGO’s and international organizations in the region. UN Women is an active member of the Gender-Based Violence Working Group and has a dedicated Adviser working to ensure gender equality is mainstreamed across humanitarian sectors.

Dr. Sameera Al Tuwaijri, Regional Director of UN Women Regional Office for Arab States (left), and Ambassador Faeqa Al Saleh, on behalf of the Secretary General of the League of Arab States (right), sign the Memorandum of Understanding for a joint partnership in areas of common interest. Photo courtesy of wupy.org

As part of the UN Women Regional Office for Arab States’ cooperation with the League of Arab States, a strategy for women, peace and security was also recently developed and launched in May, in line with Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for women’s engagement in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The strategy will serve as both a protection and empowerment tool, focusing on prevention, participation, protection, relief and recovery.

Fadwa Sulayman: Syrian Heroine beyond Glamour and Gender

Original Source-http://www.aljadid.com/content/fadwa-sulayman-syrian-heroine-beyond-glamour-and-gender

Researcher- Hansa Rochlani



In the midst of the Syrian uprising, Fadwa Sulayman has captured popular attention in both Arab and world media. Her pictures together with her actions and remarks are all over facebook, sattellite TV, youtube and other new media outlets.  This attention has shown her to be a remarkable individual within the Syrian revolt. However, what the media highlights as newsworthy in Sulayman are in fact the same attributes and actions found in novelist and journalist Samar Yazbeck, as well as the courageous poet and author, Hala Muhammad: they are all Alawites and women who have spoken against the Assad regime, and whose writings represent the conscience of an otherwise male dominated and despotically ruled nation.
Sulayman, who was already a well-known actress, has appeared in theatrical productions, films and television series. But since her participation in the uprising, she surprised all with her civic activism. Some have written that Sulayman has been responsible for uniting the intellectual with the ordinary people as well as uniting people from different backgrounds. She captured attention when she participated in a rally in the city of Homs, the capital of the Syrian revolution, sharing the podium with soccer star Abdul-Basset Sarout. Also she captured the cameras of Al Jazeera when she announced that she would go on a hunger strike until the Syrian government releases political prisoners, withdraws the security and military forces from the streets of Homs, and stops the bombardment of Baba Amr, a Homs neighborhood. While Arab and world media, including U.S. media, highlighted the activism of Fadwa Sulayman, they fell short of properly contextualizing her role. Some of the coverage focused on the glamorous aspects of her career at the expense of substance and context. This was evident in the superficial discussions of religion. Also, the media has significantly overlooked the significance of a woman taking a prominent position in an otherwise male-dominated political activity. Unquestionably, sectarianism is a factor in Sulayman's case and so is her gender, but attention should also be given to family and kinship as well as the relationship between the artist and the state in Syria.
On one hand, it is important to notice that Sulayman, an Alawite, has broken one barrier by working closely with the Sunni community putting aside the conflicts between these two sects. On the other hand, it is important to notice that it is the Assad regime that has been attempting to create a rift between the Alawite minority and the Sunni majority. Even more, the main mouthpiece of the regime, Buthayna Shabaan, who has occupied many official positions under the Assads, father and son, surprised many people by decrying the sectarian dimensions of the uprising from its beginnings.
In Syria, modern history shows that the hostility between the different sects is very profitable for the regimes. In today’s uprising, Assad’s regime is using it as a weapon to rally Syrian minorities -- Alawites, Christians, Druzes and Ismailis -- around the Assad family rule and convince these groups that the end of this family's grip on power would spell the end of all minorities in Syria. Unfortunately, many have bought into this propaganda, namely Lebanese and Syrian Christians.
In debunking what became known as the "alliance of the minorities" Sulayman went to great length in dissecting the Assad thesis in a recorded message posted on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcccULWeVf8) and explained how the regime uses the threat of sectarian bloodshed to keep the Alawites in line. Also she stressed how in such a repressed society the influence of the regime goes deep in the individual’s life. Sulayman said that those in the Alawite community who have done well have not done so because of their own hard work, but because of their connection with the Assads. She mentioned Rami Makhlouf, an Assad cousin, who made billions of dollars, the equivalent of some countries' budgets.  But the wealth of the Makhloufs has had no spillover among the rest of the Alawites, who remain impoverished. Sulayman said that the impoverished Alawites join the army and become killers due to their terrible economic and social conditions.
In dismissing the sectarian argument of the Assad’s regime, she says that Sunnis benefited as well, naming Mustafa Tlass, a former Defense Minister, and Abd al-Halim Khaddam, a former Vice president who had a fallout with Bashar al-Assad following the assassination of Lebanese former prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Sulayman places the "Salafi argument" in the context of the sectarian thesis. Salafis are associated with "Islamic extremists," the group or groups that the Syrian regime accuses of "terrorizing" the country and who harbor ill will toward minorities, particularly Alawites.  Sulayman claims this to be an outright lie. In an interview with Al Jazeera, She  invoked the 1982 massacre of Hama in order to convince her community that Hafez al-Assad’s regime used minorities to consolidate his grip on power. According to her, Assad's forces attacked minority groups and blamed the attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood, thus justifying his destruction of the city and the Brotherhood while portraying himself as indispensable and protector of minorities.
Sulayman and many other Syrian women have broken the gender barrier. Arab and foreign media focused on Sulayman as a new phenomenon in Syrian history; however, this is not the case according to Syrian novelist Samar Yazbeck's article in Al Hayat newspaper. Herself an Alawite, and writing without reference to Sulayman, Yazbek claims that Syrian women have been playing a much larger role than they have been given credit for, even at the heights of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions and prior to the outbreak of the Syrian uprising.  Syrian women, especially the youth, were active against the Assad regime, and started participating in the early opposition meetings that were preparing for popular demonstrations. Yazbeck also notes that the presence of women was diverse in terms of class and sectarian makeup. She listed different types of activities they performed, including writing revolutionary statements, shooting films and making them available to media, providing relief to protesters, forming support committees, collecting financial contributions and working on strengthening relations between the different communities through education. She also notes that many women were publicly leading the demonstrations, with some arrested and tortured. Some of these activists have become icons of the revolutions. To this already considerable list, we can add the name of Muntaha Sultan al-Atrash, a Druze human rights activist and grand-daughter of the Syrian hero Sultan Basha al-Atrash, a commander of the Syrian revolt against the French between 1925 and 1927.
Yazbeck acknowledges an important discrepancy between the proportion of minority women among the activists and ordinary minority members who are either silent out fear or supportive of the regime.  In Yazbeck's opinion, this fact demolishes the sectarian thesis of the regime which aims to show that minorities are totally dependent on the regime. Yazbeck concludes that since the emergence of many minority women with such a high level of consciousness, liberation from religious affiliation, family and communal dependence shows that they were able to make it on their own without the assistance of the regime.
The Baathist regime has been confronting the Syrian people with a protean, skillful repressive apparatus for half a decade, so it is no surprise that the state have been exploiting the family network in order to punish Alawite dissenters.  The regime uses the families of the dissenters as weapons against their sons and daughters, threatening harm to family members if they continue protesting the regime's tyranny (a policy much-used by the Iraqi Baath as well). So far, many Alawites have disavowed Sulayman. Following her public statements in the city of Homs, her brother Mahmoud appeared on state TV and said he and his family had disowned Fadwa. He said that her actions were probably motivated by money and expressed shock at watching her on Al Jazeera shouting anti-regime slogans in a protest. Mahmoud's actions show how “families from minority groups exert a lot of pressure on the individuals who dissent," as Sulayman explained in an interview with Al Jazeera. "Many splits within families are happening because of this.” Perhaps it is understatement to say that Sulayman has broken the family barrier. This pressure is not confined to women, but includes men as well, even if they are well-accomplished culturally. In a recent interview with Al Safir newspaper Cultural Supplement, Munzir Badr Halloum, a novelist and academic, said that "when I called for removing the plague from my country, I had my family issuing a statement disavowing me."
While families of dissenters are abused and prosecuted under most dictatorships, in the Middle East there are differences of degree. Once again, leaving aside Syria’s political culture, the level of authoritarianism remains the primary explanatory factor. When family members lack civil and individual rights that set them apart from their relatives, and when the whole is considered one, we face nothing short of fascist dictatorship.  Clearly this is what the Syrian regime is about.
"Everywhere you go, even a theater or a film company, you feel you have entered a security branch,” Sulayman told Reuters in a Skype interview from Homs. “Authors write the worst scripts but they are chosen because they have links to security.” Nothing sums up the relationship between the artist and the state better than this statement by Fadwa Sulayman.
A final barrier Fadwa Sulayman has broken is the dependence on the state.  It can hardly be said that Syria has a vibrant civil society that can provide artists independence from the state, enabling them to assert their freedom of political and artistic expression. Yet, Fadwa Sulayman chose to join the uprising and leaving behind government jobs and grants, "monetary funds that allows the government to censor any type of creative work" whether in theater or film.

Women Come last in Syrian Refugee Camps

Original Source- http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/4917/full


Researcher- Avantika Lal

The silent majority: Despite making up more than two-thirds of the people escaping the violence and oppression in Syria, women and children are as vulnerable as ever in refugee camps

Zaatari refugee camp, in the middle of a bleak stretch of desert in northern Jordan, just 15 miles from the Syrian border, is home to more than 120,000 people escaping the violence and repression in Syria. Three-quarters are women and children. Many of the women and girls have fled their homes after experiencing atrocities involving multiple rapes and sexual torture by armed men. 

The scandal of Zaatari and other refugee camps and dwellings is that these vulnerable, traumatised women and girls are not being adequately protected from sexual exploitation and forced marriage by those mandated to keep them from further harm. 

Women and girls not only fear retribution by the perpetrators, but also by male members of their own families because the shame and stigma of rape falls on the victim rather than the assailant. Indeed, many families are marrying off their daughters to "protect" them from rape. Others revert to early marriage if their daughters have been sexually assaulted "to safeguard their honour". In one extreme case a young woman was shot dead by her father when an armed group approached to prevent the "disgrace" of her being raped.

A recently published report by the International Rescue Committee found that female Syrian refugees are not safe from sexual and domestic violence in Zaatari and other camps, and that reports of forced marriage of women and girls are increasing. A child protection group found that the women and girls in the camp identified rape and kidnapping as a primary reason that families fled from Syria, but that sexual violence was rarely reported.

Sexual exploitation at Zaatari is so widespread that a number of camp inhabitants are operating informal monitoring groups and have caught out several "marriage brokers" who infiltrated the camp posing as workers. These individuals are merely escorted off the camp if reported. 

Indeed, a number of UN officials and aid workers I met at Zaatari and in other camps and settlements in Jordan and Lebanon tell me it is known that prostitution and trafficking of women, both at the border and within the camp exist, but to date no formal investigation has been commissioned into these criminal activities. 

At Zaatari crowds of desperate women and men queue for water and basic provisions, others sit on the ground staring into space. I ask Andrew Harper, chief of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Jordan, if there is concrete evidence of women and girls being sold at the borders and in the camp. "Many of the families are experiencing dire poverty," says Harper, "so it would be no surprise if it is happening." What is surprising is that no proper investigation into the matter has yet been carried out at Zaatari, despite local reports and official suspicion.

Women at Zaatari complain that men regularly enter the communal kitchens specifically to sexually harass lone women. Some are too afraid to use the kitchens and prefer to cook on portable gas stoves outside their tents. There are also complaints that at night the unlit latrines become sites where prostitution and sexual assault take place. Many women are too scared to use them after dark.

Jordanian police are responsible for law and order in the camp but it is apparent that there is a lack of security and that matters are out of hand. At the public security department, responsible for police, security, and law enforcement activities across Jordan, I meet Lt. Gen. Hussein al-Majali, an imposing figure resplendent in an immaculate uniform bearing numerous medals. "There are assaults, burglary, homicides in Zaatari," admits al-Majali. "It is a town. These things happen."

Between 200 and 250 police officers are deployed in the camp at any one time but only five officers are allocated to family protection, despite the fact that domestic violence towards women and children by male family members has been identified as a significant problem in Zaatari.

I ask al-Majali how bad the situation is for women and girls in the camp in terms of rape and sexual harassment. "There have not been any convictions for rape at all," he tells me proudly. "We did, however have a case where a father broke his daughter's arm, but it was resolved because it was agreed by everyone not to press charges but to keep it as a family matter."

Back at Zaatari I visit the sprawling school operated by UNHCR. It is midday and the boys crowd outside waiting for the girls to leave so they can begin their classes. A 15-year-old student tells me unprompted when asked about her future plans that she is "not even thinking about marriage yet" and would like to train as a pharmacist. It may not be her decision: Alexis Masciarelli of Unicef admits that there is "serious concern" about the rates of early pregnancy. "There are significant absences from school from the age of 13 upwards," he says, adding that the organisation is "looking into the matter". At the maternity clinic I see many pregnant teenage girls. On average, 11 babies are born in the camp every day.

Dr Shible Sahbani is humanitarian affairs specialist for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) at Zaatari, which provides support and direct services to women and their children. "In our culture women are not allowed to go outside unless accompanied by their husbands and sons," he says.

"In Arabic culture the men have a strong role in the family, but here in the camp the male has lost his role because food is for free, and shelter is for free. He gets stressed and the result is domestic violence."

Margherita Maglietti specialises in countering gender-based violence for UNFPA. She proudly shows me the women-only group sessions being held in a prefab on the camp; they are packed with women, many clutching babies, being encouraged to speak about difficulties they face. Incongruously, men are leading the session. I ask Maglietti if she has encountered prostitution and trafficking at Zaatari. "It is a very complex topic and we have been discussing it quite a lot. We cannot say there are confirmed cases. We do know that in situations like this survival sex is part of the scenario, so it cannot be denied."

But the previous day I had been told by a senior law enforcement official that the main concern for police at Zaatari in relation to women and children is that prostitution is thriving on the camp, and that the authorities have "no idea" what to do about it. Indeed, sources close to the Zaatari security agencies tell me that a number of women have been targeted by pimps and traffickers in Zaatari who smuggle them out of the camp into one of the thriving brothels in Jordan's capital, Amman.

At the urban settlement camp in Mafraq, 80 kilometres north of Amman, I am told by Rev Nour Sahawneh of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, which provides support for the Syrian refugees in the community, that most of the female refugees living there were married at 14 or 15 and are illiterate.

Polygamy as well as child marriage is common in rural Syria. In Mafraq I visit a family who fled Aleppo a year ago after their house was destroyed. The conditions in which they live are appalling. Sabine (not her real name) is 26 years old but her face and demeanour make her look much older. She has been married for seven years and has two children, aged one and two. She also helps look after the seven children her husband has with his first wife, whom he married when she was 14. "I wish I had my own house with my two children nearby," says Sabine. "But there is no money. It hurts my heart living like this, but I have no choice." 

Sabine cries as she shows me the kitchen in which meals are prepared for three adults and nine children. Damp penetrates the walls. There are two rooms and a washroom with a cold tap. One of the children is profoundly disabled. I learn that the first wife is pregnant again. "One of us gets pregnant at the beginning of the year and the other at the end," Sabine says.

I travel to Lebanon to meet with aid workers and refugees from Syria to discover whether the situation for women is any different from those in Jordan. At the Danish Refugee Council offices in Zahle, project manager Ziad Kmeid tells me "it is known" that Syrian men are abusing both Syrian and Lebanese women and girls, and that child marriage is a problem. Kmeid admits that there are cases of Syrian girls being sold into marriage and prostitution at the border and taken to Saudi Arabia and other countries. Nothing so far has been done to stop this criminal activity.

Angelina Eichhorst, EU Ambassador to Lebanon, says that dealing with the aftermath of sexual violence among Syrian refugees is a "top priority for the NGOs and others dealing with the crisis". As with Jordan, however, it is difficult to see what is being done to identify and deal with the problems.

"In order to ‘protect' women in Lebanon some are being married off aged 14 or so to Lebanese men, often as second or third wives," says Eichhorst. "Polygamy was a negligible practice in Lebanon before the Syrian crisis, although sexual violence was not. I am not saying early marriage is violence, though — it is not the same."

Even government ministers admit to the widescale sexual exploitation of refugee women. Wael Abu Faour, Minister of Social Affairs, admits that crimes against women and girls are being committed in the camps and other dwellings. "Forced prostitution and child marriage is happening here, both by Syrian and Lebanese men. But how do you control it with such large numbers involved?"

Laurice Balech is a protection officer at the Danish Refugee Council in Bekaa, offering emergency assistance for refugees. Balech tells me she has heard from locals living near the refugees that some of the women are prostituted but that there is "nothing to substantiate it".

She says: "We have cases of early marriage, in some cases of girls who are 12 and 13, but it is not really forced on them. The girls accept it. It is part of their culture." 

Some of these girls, according to Balech, find themselves in polygamous marriages. "Polygamy is quite common in Syria. Some men have three wives. It is culturally and religiously accepted. But to have a second wife you have to have a second home. It is not possible [to be allocated two separate dwellings for one family] when you are living in a camp or urban settlement, and that is when the problems can start."

Without doubt there are swathes of people providing life-saving emergency support to the displaced Syrians and who work under immense pressure to do so. But the violence and abuse so commonplace in the lives of Syrian women and girls is too often viewed as part of "culture" rather than crime. 

During my time in Jordan and Lebanon I met with several highly-trained specialists in the field from a variety of organisations and governments. Not one mentioned prosecution or punishment of the perpetrators of the human rights abuses of women and children. It would appear that in any crisis, women come last. The low status of women and girls within Syria and other Arab nations, and the cultural relativism practised by many of the agencies and law enforcers mandated to protect them has resulted in further abuse and violence. 

Just before leaving Zaatari I travel by coach with journalists and aid workers to the highest point of the camp and alight to take photographs. Within seconds a large group of males of all ages surround the vehicle, aggressively pushing and appearing to enjoy alleviating their boredom and frustration by jostling our group. We are ushered on to the bus by security staff and driven away while the crowd bang on the windows and try to jump on the bus, shouting and waving their fists. As we depart, it strikes me that the women and girls of Zaatari are still living in fear of the male violence that caused them to flee their homeland.

Women in the frontline, Women in the rear: The revolution in Syria

Original Source- http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/women-in-the-frontline-women-in-the-rear-the-revolution-in-syria/

Researcher- Hansa Rochlani

Bits and pieces of information about the growing uprising in Syria are coming our way through mainstream media sources like Al Jazeera. But dig down deep, and you’ll find a revolution with women forging the way, and with a news gap that’s being filled by Syrian expatriate females.
Let’s begin with a little known fact: The youngest known convicted prisoner of conscience in the world is a Syrian citizen. Her name is Tal al-Mallouhi, a young blogger who has been in prison since 2009, when she was 17 years old. Tal’s poetry and political interests and activism chaffed with the authorities. After being held in jail for more than two years, in February 2011, Mallouhi was sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of spying for the U.S. The case of Tal became part of Syrian consciousness, particularly among women. The idea that young people were increasingly disappearing, often later found tortured or killed, sounded an alarm in villages across Syria.
During a recent conversation with Rafif, a female Syrian expatriate activist living in Northern Virginia, I learned some of the deep grievances that were at the core of decades of citizen activism in Syria. “There is a kind of gang mentality in Syria that goes beyond politics. You either support the government-supported mafias, or you are excluded from ‘inner circles’ that allow you some economic leverage. All major industries, like tourism, mobile communications, and petroleum industries are regime-controlled. In any business, you have to strike a deal with the regime in order to operate without too much government interference,” she explains. “It is a culture of bakhsheesh, meaning tip or bribe. Those who cannot afford to pay off every level of government or businesses are excluded, and therefore don’t benefit economically.”
The case of Mohamed Bouazizi, a young fruit vendor in Tunisia who set himself afire outside a local municipal office and sparked Tunisia’s revolution, resonated for average Syrians who too had been suffering such indignities all their lives. It is a system of total psychological, social and economic repression. For the average Syrian, it is total humiliation—long waits for basic services, bribes each step of the way, and a long chain of corruption. Syrian activism for decades had been around ending this system of corruption, and this unifying theme was slowly shifting.
I am told that Syrians watched the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt in awe. Early this year, a few young students aged 8 to 15 years old were emboldened by the unfolding events in the region and wrote graffiti in their school in Dar’a, a poor area south of Damascus. The youngsters were arrested for scrawling the word “freedom” on the school wall. They were beaten and dropped off to their families. As Rafif describes it, “The city went crazy.” Many demonstrations and marches followed as people publicly expressed their outrage at the regime’s tactic to suppress a revolution: the torture of children.
Several weeks later, Hamza al-Khatib, a 13-year-old boy, again from a village in Dar’a, became the symbol of the Syria’s blossoming revolution. He was tortured to death for participating in a demonstration. Dar’a citizens staged massive demonstrations. For so many years, people had been mobilizing around reforming the system, but suddenly the focus shifted to the overthrow of the regime, as was happening in Tunisia and Egypt.
The women of Syria, both young and old, have been courageously leading many protest activities throughout the country. For them, it is personal, and they are deeply invested in the idea of change. In, April in the city of Bayda, nearly every adult male was imprisoned in an attack on the town to repress government opposition. More marches and protests followed.
Women have also been active in funeral processions, traditionally the domain of men. (Women normally mourn at home.) When women began coming out in large numbers, they too became victims of the regime’s violence. And they adapted. Syrian women traditionally do not cover their faces in public, but they are doing so during protests to protect their identities, as are many men. A clever adaptation to the face veil can be seen here, as women use the Syrian flag as a face cover, doubling as protection and a message to a regime that accuses them of being part of a foreign-led regime change plot.
Women, both expats and in the country, are extremely active. Still, protestors on the streets are mostly men. And the aspiring transitional government, the Syrian National Council, are mostly men. Between the protestors and the aspiring government, there is the wide middle wherein lies a huge network of people, many of whom are women. That network is helping document disappearances, deaths, forced detentions and torture. And they are communicating the news to the outside world through technology tools like social media and video posts on YouTube. Women are recording their actions on the ground and sharing that information with Syrian expatriates in London, Paris, Northern Virginia, Los Angeles, Detroit, Cleveland, New York and New Jersey.
“I didn’t realize how Syrian I was until this uprising began. I am a U.S. citizen by birth and have spent only a few years in Syria, as a child and later as an adult. I was disappointed,” my friend reflects, often with tears welling. “Now I realize that what I hated about my country: it was the system.” Another Syrian expat woman, Mohja Kahf, writes regularly and provides analysis, video and photos of the ongoing revolution—particularly women in resistance. Their work is full of risks. Many Syrians expats who are active in the movement understand that they are being watched by Syrian intelligence agents. Rafif and other Syrian women from around the world translate news and spread it through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. They spread awareness globally and also offer information to the insiders on effective civil disobedience.
Rafif explains her motivation to take part in the uprising: “I get to do this while Syrians inside the country are getting shot at. Seven and eight year old children who even speak of freedom are considered enemies of the state. When they take to the streets, it’s like a suicide mission. But they’d rather die than be silent. I look at how these children are being harmed, and I think, ‘that child could be my son or daughter.’ As a mother, a woman, and a human being, how could I not get involved?”
She recognizes that some may see them as supporting the revolution from “9 to 5.” Rafif acknowledges that she gets to go home each night in relative safety. But she is confident that many Syrians on the inside are appreciative of the support from their fellow Syrians on the outside. “We are helping broadcast the revolution and building global awareness,” Rafif explains between tears and determination, gripping her laptop full of first-hand accounts and resources.

The Women of War: Syria's Female Battalion fighting on the front line against President Assad's Government Forces

Original Source:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2296588/The-women-war-Syrias-female-battalion-fighting-line-President-Assads-government-forces.html


Researcher- Hansa Rochlani



Emerging from the shadows of their secret command outpost, these are the members of the only all-female fighting unit in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.
Around 150 women have formed the katiba - which means battalion or phalanx in Arabic - which is playing a major role in the fighting, according to a monitoring group.
The katiba, made up of mostly Kurdish women, is fighting beside the Free Syrian Army against government forces on the streets of Syria's second city.

Members of the only all-female katiba in Aleppo fighting beside the Free Syrian Army, standing inside a secret command outpost

The formation of the women's battalion was announced in Ifrin, the scene in late 2012 of violence

'The Kurdish popular committees have set up the first women's battalion, comprising some 150 women fighters. The battalion is named the Martyr Rokan Battalion,' said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which opposes the regime.
'While women are now fighting alongside the rebels, pro-regime forces and Kurdish militia, this is the first women's battalion as such,' said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

'Women are now playing a major role in the fighting in Syria,' he said.

The formation of the women's battalion was announced in Ifrin, the scene in late 2012 of violence pitting Kurdish fighters against Arab rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Assad's troops pulled out from majority Kurdish areas in 2012, and while Kurds have been split over the anti-regime revolt in Syria, most have chosen to remain neutral in the conflict.

An agreement in Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border brought an end to fighting between Kurds and Islamist rebels, though some activists have described the agreement brokered by a prominent Christian dissident as fragile.

Ready for war: The katiba, made up of mostly Kurdish women, is fighting beside the Free Syrian Army

The announcement of the Kurdish women's battalion comes a month after pro-regime forces set up the National Defence Forces, a paramilitary unit in which women of all ages have been asked to volunteer.

Anti-regime activists have also distributed images of women fighters joining rebel ranks.

'Women are fighting on all the fronts now, though it's possibly the Islamist rebel ranks that have the fewest women taking part in them,' the Observatory's Abdel Rahman said.
A female activist in the coastal province of Latakia said women often transport weapons and supplies for rebels as they are less likely to be searched at army and security checkpoints.
Troops loyal to Assad and rebels have been locked in a deadly stalemate in Aleppo, Syria's largest urban center and main commercial hub, since an opposition assault last summer.
Eight months later, the rebels hold large parts of the city and its outskirts, including several army bases. But they have been unable to overcome the regime's far superior firepower.

Uprising: Members of the Free Syrian Army chant slogans against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Azzaz, Aleppo

A defaced poster of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is seen near garbage containers in Aleppo

A Free Syrian Army fighter takes cover during clashes with Syrian Army in the Salaheddine neighbourhood of central Aleppo

Today, Syria's government and rebels both demanded an international investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack, as the country's feared arsenal became the latest propaganda tool in the two-year-old civil war.
President Barack Obama said the U.S. is investigating whether chemical weapons have been deployed in Syria, but noted that he is 'deeply sceptical' of claims by President Bashar Assad's regime that rebel forces were behind such an attack.
'Once we establish the facts, I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game changer,' Obama said in a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
The use of chemical weapons by either side is a nightmare scenario. Along with its warnings about Assad, the West is just as concerned that rebel forces, including some linked to Al Qaida, could get their hands on Syria's chemical weapons supplies.
Despite the importance, any clear confirmation of the nature of the attack that took place on Tuesday in the northern village of Khan al-Assal, killing at least 31 people, is unlikely. Syria's government seals off areas it controls to journalists and outside observers.
The two sides blamed each other for a chemical attack without offering clear proof or documentation, as has frequently been the case in the Syrian civil war.
If confirmed, it would be the first time a chemical weapon has been used in Syria's war that has already killed an estimated 70,000 people.