Syria: talking about traumas, as important as breathing

Shaima (*) had her fourth daughter when she was 27 years old.

She was happy to see her born, but she was also tired and overwhelmed.

The unpleasant surprise came a few weeks later, when her husband insisted that they have another baby.

After four girls, she wanted a boy.

Family life in a southern province of the Autonomous Administration of East and North Syria, under Kurdish rule, was already exhausting for this mother, who could not imagine a fifth pregnancy, but her husband forbade her to take pills contraceptives.

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A safe space for displaced women and girls

A few weeks later, a neighbor told this mother about the safe spaces for women and girls in the province.

Shaima was not sure what she meant by a “safe space”.

"I just needed to talk to someone," she remembers.

After knocking on that door, a little scared at first, the young woman finally found some relief: “The flowers, paintings and fountains in the courtyard of this protected area calmed me down, and Aseel (*) was there to listen to my story and also to provide me with a room in which my daughters could play”.

Aseel, a social worker at the safe space, has never used the term "spousal rape."

“There are some sensitive issues that we can't address directly, or that we need the go-ahead for from our security team,” she explains.

"Society is still very conservative and the war has deeply affected it."

In the following sessions, after listening to Shaima, Aseel invited her to reflect on the different kinds of psychological pressure and domestic violence.

She also proposed several sessions of psychological support.

“At some point, Shaima was offered the possibility of a job and her husband's abuse increased.

She gave her the emergency phone number so she could call a social worker to take care of her at home if she couldn't come.”

Interior of one of the largest displaced persons camps in northeastern Syria.

Most of its inhabitants, Syrians and Iraqis, took refuge there in the midst of the final battle against the Islamic State.

Now they try to make a living selling fruit and vegetables.Alessio Mamo

According to recent reports, gender-based violence in Syria has increased alarmingly over the decades of the conflict, with an estimated 13.4 million people in need of ongoing humanitarian assistance, with 90% of population living below the poverty line.

Among the victims, women and girls in all governorates bear the brunt of physical, psychological, sexual, economic and social violence, as well as forced and early marriages, deprivation of education and labor exploitation.

A deep economic crisis that continues to worsen, coupled with the unrelenting Covid-19 pandemic, have only aggravated the crisis on a large scale in the last two years.

When Hanan (*) meets with her team of collaborators working in safe spaces across northeast Syria, she knows that solidarity and awareness are good starting ingredients for change, even if they are less visible or measurable than interventions humanitarian.

“Some organizations provide shelter, food and health services;

others also support non-academic training, but we have to focus on the mental health of girls and women during the war, because they are the most vulnerable”, she reflects sitting on the wall of the fountain in the courtyard of one of these places.

“I think that in Syria, protection programs are as necessary as food and water.

Sometimes listening to suffering is already a start.”

The safe space, which is supported by LEARN - a consortium of four international NGOs led by Solidarités International - offers training and awareness sessions on topics such as early marriage or the importance of education and rights with a gender perspective.

Yaqoot (*), 24 years old, is one of the participants.

“I used to clean houses, but when my son was born with a disability, I had to leave him (to take care of him).

My husband, who is also my cousin, did not accept it and left us, ”she explains serenely in one of the bedrooms.

“Now my dream is to learn to sew and start a project at home, so that my son is with me all the time and I can earn a living.

It would be a great relief."

Yaqoot is very happy with the sewing classes, but the most important and beautiful thing is having someone to talk to.

“When you are disappointed, tired and psychologically broken, you come to this space.

Here you are safe from having to hear what people say, it protects you from social pressures”.

Protection tents in the camps

In one of the largest camps in northeastern Syria, around 60,000 people found refuge in the midst of the battle against the Islamic State.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - a coordination force that includes Arabs, Kurds and Syrians under Kurdish leadership - had defeated the Islamic State or Daesh in its last stronghold of Baguz, on the banks of the Euphrates, in the province of Deir ez- Zor, supported by US-led coalition airstrikes.

Displaced Syrians and Iraqis form the majority of the population in these camps, which also includes women and girls of different nationalities.

A mother cradles her child inside one of the safe spaces for women and girls in a refugee camp.Alessio Mamo

In the

the camp, Soman (*) sits in a circle with five companions.

She leads the meeting and asks the participants to share their feelings and thoughts.

“Most of them have been through very difficult times.

His life in the camp is not easy either;

they live in a tent in a desert climate,” says Soman, who goes on to explain the psychosocial support sessions: “We talk about the river as a symbol of life, as something that represents the events we have experienced.

In all rivers there are flowers, rocks, algae.

We try to compare our life and divide the river into the different phases of existence.

We also try to remember the good and positive things that have happened to us.

Due to their suffering, these women often forget the beautiful moments.”

Soman works as a psychosocial support assistant and is not always able to carry out her work in the camp, as she is sometimes not allowed to enter for security reasons.

In recent years, and especially in recent months, humanitarian workers have been in the crosshairs of Daesh members living in the refugee camp.

Inside and outside the facility, attacks by groups like this have been on the rise, with the Syrian Democratic Forces carrying out raids to arrest sleeper cell members.

In addition to the river as a metaphor for life, Soman uses other methods to help.

“We do drawing sessions and one of the activities is to paint a staircase putting the goals we have in mind in order.

There are short-term goals that we can achieve now and lifelong dreams that we want to nurture.”

Women and girls in the protection center of the Al Hol refugee camp, in northeastern SyriaAlessio Mamo

Hiba (*) participated in one of these meetings and drew the ladder with her goals in mind: “I want to learn to sew and take part in a literacy course.

Others want to learn the Koran by heart.

When I traced the ladder, I put a star at the top: that is my final goal.

The only way to get to the top is to go step by step.”

Her first step was to go to the safe space and ask about the courses.

Hiba participated in the awareness sessions.

Her husband, her children and she lived in Hasake, and during the time of Daesh they moved from one place to another to escape the fighting.

Her husband was a cook and one day he was killed in an airstrike directed at the sector of Raqqa where he had his restaurant.

“Since I was a woman, then it was not easy for me to move alone,

so I took my children and joined a group of other women until we reached Baguz.”

From there they were transferred to the camp, where they now live in limbo, not knowing if they will be taken somewhere else or if they will be allowed to return to their places of origin and their extended families.

Soman points out that many residents of the refugee camp feel forced to wear the niqab, as in Daesh times, due to threats from other neighbors who remain loyal to the principles of the so-called caliphate.

“There are few spaces in the camp where they feel free.

Inside the protective tent they can talk and rest, and at least they don't have to cover their faces, because they know that we will respect their privacy and confidentiality."

That's why Hiba hasn't stopped coming to these meetings since she first met them a year ago.

“I come here every day.

I try to forget that we are in a camp and enjoy this time, ”she states.

“In addition to activities, we do breathing exercises to relieve stress.

Here I learned, and now I can also practice on my own, when I'm in my store.

(*) The real names of the women interviewed have been omitted at their request.

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