“Syrian
Women and Their Human Rights’ - Violation Before Conflict, During Conflict and in
Refugee Camps”
During
conflict, women more likely become vulnerable to Human Rights abuses and many
of them leave their home for the variety of reasons like wars and other forms
of violence, political unrest and instability, Human Rights violation, severe
forms of discrimination and they more likely become the victims of persecution
due to religion, race and ethnic group and natural disaster in compare with
men. According to international Amnesty
in 2016, about 60 percent of the populations on move are women and children and
this means that more women and children risk and
lose their lives in the Mediterranean Sea and on the land routes to Europe.
Unfortunately, one- third of persons who died in the Mediterranean in January
2016, were women and children.
In case of women refugees, it is
regrettable to say that, many of women refugees before reaching the camp are
already people who have suffered from serious Human Rights violation. In this regard;
this is the responsibility of camps to represent an improvement upon the
situation which they have fled. Therefore, in this context, the camps along
with offering basic requirements of their life, like food, water, shelter, care
and affection in respect of human rights, must provide some sort of security
against the further Human Rights violation particularly for women refugees. Related
to this issue, the Beijing Platform for Action and Refugee Women calls
international attention to four realities about refugee women such as;
1-
The increased burden of
responsibility that women refugees face as a result of conflict, in paragraph
133, this paragraph has stated the women are the major victims of gross human rights
violations and policies of ethnic cleansing in war torn.
2-
The particular vulnerability of
women to gender specific violations of Human Rights while fleeing in paragraph
135, this paragraph has stated, often parties to conflict using systematic rape
as a tactic of war and women are affected because of their status in society
and their sex.
3-
Paragraph 136 also has stated, women
often experienced difficulty in some countries of asylum in being recognized as
refugees when their claim is based on gender based violence.
4-
Further, paragraph 137 has states,
the need to represent the women voice in policies and decision makings that
affect them.
In case of Syria, there is noteworthy to say
that, this country has ratified four of international instruments which apply
to events on the civil wars and known as HR conventions, which are including,
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Convention on the Rights of
Child and UN Convention Against Torture. But despite ratifying all these
conventions, the civilian and in between particularly women have suffered
hardly because of Human Rights violation during the war and armed conflict. It
can be proved a failing of Syria in implementation these rights during armed
conflict. There is another unfortunate that is Syria is not the party to the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, that’s why the ICC has no
jurisdiction in this country for punishing those groups who has committed the
war crimes. According to UN Report, “the war has been characterized by a
complete lack of adherence to the norms of international law” and HRs violation
have been committed by both the governments and the rebels.
In fact, violence against women in
Syria did not begin with the armed conflicts. They had experience violence and
discrimination in law and practice for decades. In this regard, the UNDP Gender
Inequality Index that measures the discrepancy between men and women in terms
of reproductive health, empowerment and access to employment. In Syria, there
are a number of discriminatory laws in the Nationality Law, in the Panel Code
and legalize and legitimize the Gender Based Violence in different articles
under different pretexts. There are many cases of rape, forced child marriage
and honor killings. During armed conflict also, women in Syria are the victims
of violence which are committed by non- state armed group and ISIS and Government
of Syria as well. The non- state armed
group and ISIS carried out serious abuses like, attacking civilians, using
child solders, kidnapping and execution in public. In this regard ISIS has
imposed strict and discriminatory rules on women and girls, and sexually
enslaves and abuse Yezidi women and girls. According to Human Rights Watch a
systematic and organized rape and sexual assault, slavery and forced marriage
by ISIS forces carried out against women or they sold or given as “gift” to
ISIS fighters. In contrast, the Syrian
Government continue to detain not only many civilian men, women and children
but also many HR defenders, civil society activism and humanitarian workers and
lawyers. There are many cases of sexual abuses against women in public or in
front of their relatives which carried out by both parties and force them to
unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape. Government of Syria further detains
women with this knowledge that it can bring shame to the entire family
especially in a patriarchal society of Syria that confines honor to the bodies
of women. This has prompted many families to push their wife and daughters to
emigrate.
More than 4.8 million people mostly
women and children have fled from Syria. In fact, these women were subject to persecution and sexual and
gender-based violence, including war-related violence, they left their
countries and they hoped to find safety and protection in neighboring countries
and maintaining their dignity. In spite of, in some of those countries they
still experience discrimination and human rights violations. Women refugees
in camps, according to UNHCR, besides poverty, are suffering from limited
livelihoods, declining aid, scarce educational opportunities and insecurity
especially in Iraq and difficulties in renewing residency permits especially in
Lebanon.
In this regard Syrian
women refugees in Turkey camps are recognized
as “guests” and not as “refugees;” and the camps where Syrians reside are
officially “guest-camps. However, Syrians in Turkey are not treated like asylum
seekers coming from other non-European countries; either they cannot register
with UNHCR in order to apply for asylum in a third country. Due to a change of
the policy by the Turkish state, UNHCR stopped registering Syrians since 2011. The study which has conducted by Amnesty International
noted that many of Syrian women refugees are harassing in their work
place by their employers and the employers take advantage of the vulnerability
of those female Syrian who need to work. In this regard many of Syrian girls
because of lack of sufficient physical security especially in the camps and
work place are facing with early marriage and are forcing to marry older
Turkish for money and mostly this happen between families where there is not
father or older brother to support family financially. As it mentioned earlier,
because of lack of registration, those women who are the victims of rape and sexual
harassment, facing barriers to report such crimes because of fear of
deportation. There is also many reported
on regular verbal harassment and about those women who are integrated to the
country of asylum. Unfortunately there are many cases also, the father or
brothers selling their daughters or sisters for money.
In Lebanon;
on 4 May 2015 the government of Lebanon instructed UNHCR to
stop all new registrations of Syrian refugees. As it mentioned above, without
UNHCR registration, most refugees are unable to access financial
and other security support. In fact Syrian and Palestinian refugee women from
Syria still face risks of serious Human Rights violations and abuses, including
gender-based violence and exploitation. For example in many cases, Palestinians refused entry or forcing
deported from Jordan. According to Amnesty International, Syrian women
refugees face with following problems in Lebanon such as sexual harassment in
work place, and under payment and wage discrimination, financial problem in
paying the rent, sexual harassment in public place, sexual
harassment by police officers and government office employees in charge of
renewing residence permits, employers, neighbors and strangers in the street. In the same study by Amnesty International, it has reported on sexual violence and the exploitation of Syrian
refugee women in Lebanon. It noted those refugee women who were the heads of
their households and without an adult male relative were particularly at risk
and had little or no protection or access to justice.
The Syrian women also in the way of
fleeing to Europe face some barriers especially after November 13, Paris attacks,
which were enacted to prevent entry of all migrants. In this regard, many
countries like Hungary enacted fence and imposed high penalties for irregular
entry, many Syrian were push backed violently from Bulgaria and Greece and many
of west countries only accepted a small numbers of refugees for resettlements.
And recently the Trump ban on the entry of people who are from six Muslim
countries can affect children and women refugees more than other parts of
refugees. During flights to Europe,
women are facing with different health problem cases and they often suffer from urinary tract infections because they
drink too little, the toilets are not clean and they're not used to the cold
and a lots of pregnant women who suffer from bleeding, some have miscarriages. Another research on Syrian and Iraqi refugees
during their journey to Europe, by Amnesty International shows that women and
girl refugees face violence, assault, exploitation and sexual harassment at
every stage of their journey, including on European soil, also the report noted
that, all the women described feeling threatened and unsafe during the journey.
Moreover, the detention of migrant women,
including pregnant women, is also of serious concern which recently has
increased in Europe and often women refugees are held in detention alongside
with men who are not members of their family.
Therefore, in
the case of Syrian refugees, the international community must increase financial contributions
to the UN Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan and to avoid the damaging cuts
to refugee support that occurred in previous years. These particular States
must increase the number of resettlement and humanitarian admission places for
refugees from Syria who are currently hosted in Lebanon and other neighboring
countries and must ensure that resettlement programmes are in line with UNHCR
criteria. The government of Lebanon and Turkey must ensure all refugees from
Syria to renew their residency and must remove obstacles to residency renewal
particularly for women refugees especially those women who are living as a head
of household. Furthermore, all asylum
countries must ensure that refugee women and girls are protected from gender-based
violence and other human right violations and abuses in public and private.
These countries must try to ensure, everyone enjoys the rights contained in the
Covenant “including non-nationals, under their international commitments.
In the
way of Europe, according to the report by Amnesty International, there is
needed to set up single sex, well-lit toilet facilities and separate safe
sleeping areas. In these issues cannot
be indifferent when these women and their children have fled some of the
world’s worst areas and it is really shameful that in the twenty- first century
they are still suffer of these many problems and at risk security staff or other refugees and
they are exploited because of lacked the financial resources to pay for their
journey through exchange for sex.
In this regard, furthermore Members of the international community have
obligations to provide humanitarian assistance and co-operation in accordance
with Articles 55 and 56 of the UN Charter and relevant resolutions of
international bodies relating to times of emergency. In
the last few years, hundreds and thousands of newspaper articles and NGO reports
have been written highlighting what is perceived to be the problem of Syrian
women refugees, but still the same problems, Syrian women refugees are
suffered. Therefore this is clear that the existence of one particular
legal guideline towards women refugees and their particular problems and
persecutions can help the Human Right agencies and other related organization
in creating a unified response to the women
refugee crisis specially today for the Syrian women refugees’ needs and
finally there is need to provide more gender aware training especially for
those staffs who are working with women refugees and responsible people at
borders.
Shima Azizi, PhD Scholar in Law
Seied Beniamin Hosseini, B.A., L.L.B., PG Student in MBA
-
References
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International, Refugee Women from Syria Uprooted and Unprotected in Lebanon,
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Accessed on 5 February 2017.
2- Amnesty
International, Female refugees face physical assault, exploitation and sexual
harassment on their journey through Europe, 18 January 2015, Retrieved from: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/01/female-refugees-face-physical-assault-exploitation-and-sexual-harassment-on-their-journey-through-europe/,
Accessed on 5 February 2017.
3- Brenda
Stoter, Syrian women refugees humiliated, exploited in Turkey, Março 12, 2014, Retrieved from: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/pt/originals/2014/03/syria-refugees-women-exploitation-harassment.html,
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Concluding Observations on Lebanon, CEDAW/C/LBN/4-5, para 46(a)
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Accessed on; 4 February 2017.
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Accessed on: 5 February 2017.
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11- UN
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International League for Peace and Freedom, Against Women in Syria and the
Disproportionate Impact of the Conflict
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