Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/tag/jordan/)
As her family was fleeing Syria, one mother thought an arranged marriage for her 11-year-old daughter was a chance at safety. Instead, it opened the door to devastation, according to a doctor who met them at her clinic and tells what she observed.
“I feel that I am a citizen with a quarantined identity. I cannot pass it on to anyone,” says a woman married to a man who is not Jordanian. The government’s late-December reform disappointed her and other activists.
Religious court data show a growing share of Jordanian marriage licenses going to Syrian female minors in the past three years. But the debate in the international aid community is whether early marriage is worsening for Syrian refugee girls or just being exposed by the crisis.
Prepared by their culture to stay home with the children, single female heads of household are ill-equipped for refugee life in the cities of Jordan. Survival sex, domestic violence and early marriage are all part of the coping effort.
The Judean desert was full of perils and hardship for a 9-month pregnant Jewish woman struggling to reach Bethlehem for the Roman census. We follow that same female trek of endurance in our watch over Syrian refugees in Jordan, U.S. women in maternity wards.
In a group therapy session in Jordan, refugee women unload about the difficulties of caring for children afflicted by nightmares, aggressive outbursts and PTSD symptoms. “I have two boys, ages 3 and 5. They are scared of everything,” says one participant.
The group of 100 female leaders from 14 countries met in Jordan in late October and plans to reconvene in early 2014. They are focused on engaging with women’s post-conflict rights and powers under a series of U.N. resolutions.
Every day dozens of Syrian female refugees living in Jordan sign up to return home. Some say they can’t make ends meet living abroad. Others want to find male relatives who didn’t make it through the border or were left behind.
Jordan’s schools are opening their doors to Syrian refugee children. Yet, thousands of girls stay home; costs of supplies are too high and parents are too wary of the risky, long walks to school. The first of a series on female Syrian refugees.
In September 2013, Women’s eNews sent a three-person multi-media team to Jordan to cover and share the stories of Syrian female refugees living in that country. Some have said this century is the century of the refugee and, if so, these pieces may be emblematic of the experiences of all women fleeing armed conflicts.