Last Updated on April 3, 2021 by themigrationnews
The year 2021 marks a ten-year anniversary from the beginning of the Syrian war. Even though a decade has passed, the conflict in Syria is still occurring provoking a massive displacement and killings of millions in the country. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, there has been documentation of over 388,652 deaths across Syria from March 2011 to March 2021. Nevertheless, there is an estimate by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which specifies that this number could be higher, since this statistic is not including civilians killed under torture, missing persons, and kidnapped persons.
As the war continues, the destruction of schools, hospitals, and houses has been uprising provoking the massive displacement of millions of persons that used to live in Syria, this has occurred as an internal and external displacement. In the case of internally displaced people (IDP), according to UNHCR currently, there are about 6.2 millionof IDP in Syria being at its most vulnerable since they have not crossed an international border and are located still inside conflict areas.
On the other hand, in the case of external displacement, it has been stated by World Vision that currently there have been 5.6 million refugees in diverse regions of the world. This is the reason why there has been identified an urgent humanitarian assistance response necessity regarding the damaged systems in healthcare centers, hospitals, water, and sanitation facilities. It is important to mention that the group which has been affected the most during this decade have been children and women. For this reason, it is indispensable to analyze this conflict through gender lenses especially now during a pandemic.
Syrian refugees – Where do they go?
The majority of Syrians have applied for asylum in countries near Syria such as: Egypt, Turkey, or Lebanon. Regarding these three countries, Turkey is identified as the country which has received the highest number of Syrian refugees being 3.6 million. The UN Refugee Agency shared that the settings in which the majority of Syrian refugees (92 percent) are currently living are rural and urban, and almost 5 percent are situated inside or outside of refugee camps. Even though refugees got outside of Syria, the vast majority of them are living under precarious conditions, with limited access to basic services, education or job opportunities.
It is crucial to provide an economic recovery plan for Syrian refugees and asylum seekers, as the majority of them are suffering the repercussions of their livelihoods lost, which prevents them from covering basic needs such as medicines, paying rents, or food. While this conflict has affected the livelihoods of each Syrian refugee and asylum seeker, it is important to comprehend how women and children have been more vulnerable.
Women and children under the Syrian War
More than half of Syrian refugees are women and children – about 80%, and by the end of 2020, according to UNICEF, some 4.8 million children were born in Syria since the conflict began nine years ago. As a lack of livelihoods for Syrians, families have made severe decisions for their children such as: sending children to work and early marriage of girls. Even though specific humanitarian aid has been offered for children in Syria, for refugees and asylum seekers, still it is identified a massive necessity to cover such needs as: vaccination, medical attention, food, education, and specific attention for physical and mental disabilities in children.
While education is still not accessible for the majority of children in Syria, girls are particularly affected by this issue. As this conflict is preventing boys and girls from accessing education, girls are getting a higher risk of ending in child marriage. Child marriage for girls occurs due to several aspects, nevertheless, the provision of financial stability is one of the most alarming cases because marrying a girl can provide an opportunity of livelihoods access or facilitation to enter a different country for her family. As girls grow, gender inequality increases leading to a disproportionate impact of conflict on women.
Through a gender analysis on the Syrian conflict, it can be identified that in several cases women have to acquire new roles and responsibilities inside their families. Women have to face a conflict in which often, their rights to work, educate, and movement are continuously compromised. In Syria, women are part of the majority of poor people, as many of them have become the head of households by losing their partners, taking care of their orphan children has become a challenge, not only due to the lack of income or inability to work, but also due to the lack of access to productive resources.
Another aspect that has affected women the most is the lack of health facilities access. Currently, it has been identified that in Syria there is a high death rate maternal mortality which could have been prevented through access to childbirth attention and pre-natal control. Nevertheless, women have to live their pregnancies in a war zone without optimal attention and sometimes adding some challenges such as psychological harm, social, and economic exclusion that they have to confront in the country, challenges that are more difficult for women to overcome.
It is indispensable that, after ten years have passed since the beginning of the war, to analyze each aspect through gender analysis. It is important to provide a recovery plan that specifically attends to women’s and children’s necessities. These responses should not wait until the conflict ends, but they should be addressed in every country in which asylum seekers and refugees are establishing. Also, it is crucial to provide a gender response through humanitarian assistance in the country and to protect and attend to women’s and children’s needs.
Alejandra Camacho Vega holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from the Instituto Tecnológico y de EstudiosSuperiores de Monterrey (TEC), and a Technical Diploma in Political Communication from the University of Cádiz (UCA). She is passionate about art, humanitarian assistance, international development, and is able to communicate professionally in Spanish, English, French, and Italian. Twitter: @_alecamachov