Suhair Al-Idlibi 

Idlib – Forcibly displacement has also forced many women to adapt to difficult living conditions, and women have struggled to gain some stability.

Safia Al-Shaker spends half of her day collecting some sticks, nylon bags, and some inflammable waste in order to burn them to keep her four children and her disabled husband in their bad tent. She also collects plastic containers and some minerals to sell and to buy some things for her family.

 Safia Al-Shaker is one of hundreds of thousands of women who were forcibly displaced by the ongoing civil war in Syria. She fled along with her family and settled in remote camps, the lack of basic human needs.

 Safia Al-Shaker says that since her displacement in 2019, from Maarat Al-Numan city to the Deir Hassan border camp, she has not experienced a normal life. She has suffered from poverty, cold, and challenges since her husband was hit by a piece of shrapnel during the bombardment of warplanes bombing in late 2018.  Her husband becomes a disabled person.

 The fierce clashed broke out between the Syrian regime forces and the opposition factions in November 2019, caused 300,000 civilians to be displaced while many of them were injured and lost their lives.

Safia Al-Shaker says, "We live in a camp as we live in exile.  We live in damaged tents, when it rains, water passes through the tents. So we and our belongings get wet, often the camp is flooded due to rain. It is not just weather conditions that make our life difficult, but also the lack of basic needs such as food, water, education, and medical centers are the most terrible.

The ongoing civil war causes an increase in displaced people in Syria. About seven million people have been internally displaced and half of them are women facing double suffering because their family members have been separated from each other and women have to live under extremely difficult circumstances.

 Khadija Sheikh Ahmed (35) is sitting in front of the door of her tent in Harbanoush camp, north of Idlib, waiting for her husband to return from work.

Khadija Ahmed says, "Before we were displaced from Kafar Nabl city, my husband had worked in a supermarket, but the regime's planes bombed the supermarket and we were forced to flee without money.” She also says that her husband rarely finds a job to work and that they cannot cover expenses for their basic needs.

The city of Kafar Nabl city was also affected by fierce clashes broke out between the Syrian regime forces and the opposition factions, and more than a hundred civilians were killed, then the factions took control of the city  on August 10, 2012.

Khadija Ahmed says, " The most importing thing that hurts me is the absence of school or any educational center in the camp, my four children cannot continue continuing their education, even though they are very good at their lessons.”

 Najah al-Shallah (40), called Umm Muhammad, has been still moving from one place to another since she was displaced from al-Ghab area north of Hama in the northern countryside of Idlib in 2018.

 Najah Al-Shallah says, "We cannot meet the expenses to rent a suitable house, because house rents are exorbitant and they are paid in dollars and Turkish lira while we cannot meet the expenses of food. And this condition forces us to live in uninhabitable homes".

Najah Al-Shallah has worked in agriculture to help her husband for meeting the needs of her family.  She is a woman from the countryside and knows very well how to deal with seasonal crops.”

 Usually, the doubled pressure is imposed on displaced women especially for women who losses their husbands or their husbands were killed or become disabled. Women have also faced challenges in the labor market, and women are paid half of the salary paid to men. Fadia Al-Suwaid says, "These women have been subjected to psychological abuse and sexual exploitation because of male mentality in the society ".

 Fadia Al-Suwaid says "poverty and deteriorating economic conditions lead the displaced women to accept any work, despite long hours and low salary.

She also states that she had heard many stories of displaced women and she tells the stories as follows, “I have heard many stories of displaced Syrian women being exploited by members of civil society or relief organizations who force the displaced women into sexual services by saying they would help them and these displaced women cannot reveal what they are subjected to in fear that they can lose their reputations or aid that they receive"

In the end, Fadia Al-Suwaid calls on government authorities to look at the situation of displaced women and to provide them a secure job and shelter opportunities.

 According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of displaced people from Idlib is 960,000.327,000 civilians have lived in camps, about 165,000 people have lived in uncompleted homes or buildings, 366 people have lived in rented houses, while nearly 93,000 people have lived in public buildings such as schools and mosques.