WUNRN
UNHCR - The UN Refugee Agency
PAKISTAN - INTERNALLY DISPLACED
WOMEN & CHILDREN - CONFLICT IN SWAT
A Woman's Story in the
©
UNHCR/H.Caux
A young mother wearing her burqa
holds her daughter. She travelled two days by foot with her family from the
Swat valley before reaching safety in camp. The girl has developed skin rash on
her hands because of the heat.
YAR HUSSAIN
CAMP,
When the bombing
got closer to their village near the Swat capital of Mingora in May, the couple
fled with their children and made their way over the rugged terrain to safer
areas in the south of the province.
"Imagine, I
had been confined in my house for many years in Swat and suddenly I had to
climb the mountains – it was very new for me," Mariam
told me in her family's new home, a tent in the Yar Hussain Camp managed by the
UN refugee agency in NWFP's Swabi district.
"It
reminded me of when I was a little girl and free to walk around," the
28-year-old recalled. "But when I grew up I could not go out anymore. So
when I climbed those mountains some weeks ago, I was overwhelmed by how the
situation had turned out." Mariam is one of tens of thousands of women
whose lives have been overturned by recent events.
The bombing was
traumatic. "My children were crying all the time," Mariam said. "They
were terrified by the noise. I had to put cotton wool in their ears to calm
them down. We were only thinking of one thing: we must save our children, we
must put them in a safe place."
And yet in her
haste to flee, Mariam left one behind. "I thought I had taken [my
one-month-old son, Noor Zaman] in the blanket I was holding in my arms, but he
was not there," she recalls, tears in her eyes." As we were fleeing,
my husband asked if I had our son and I realized I did not have him. We rushed
back to the house to pick him up."
The family made
it to Buner, the district south of Swat, after paying 2,500 rupees (US$40) for
the bus ride, but had to leave again in two weeks when the family whose home
they were staying fled themselves. Mariam's family walked nearly six hours to
reach Swabi district (and Yar Hussain Camp). Now the family is safe. They are
receiving shelter and food.
But while her
family is better off for now, life in the dusty camp is proving particularly
challenging for Mariam and other traditional Muslim women there.
Back in the
"My husband
brought me everything, so I didn't need to venture beyond the walls of our
house," she added. "That is our culture."
But in the camp,
she can't avoid venturing outside her tent in order to tend to her ailing
father-in-law in a nearby tent or to visit the camp clinic. To make matters
worse, she was not able to flee with her burqa so that when she does go out she
is not sufficiently covered. "I feel very uncomfortable without the burqa
in the camp," she told me. ["There are many men I do not know (in the
camp)."]
Mariam stays in
her hot tent as much as possible. She and other women are being treated for a
painful kidney complaint at the camp clinic because of their reluctance to go
and use the toilets during the daylight hours. "It is very hot here,"
she admitted. Mariam has only seen her mother once in seven weeks even though
she lives in a nearby tent.
To help these
women, the UN refugee agency has used plastic sheeting to create purdah walls
around blocks of tents and so ensure privacy for the women and girls within.
Some families have created their own purdah walls around individual tents.
Mariam's husband
is also worried about her venturing out. "He is afraid I would get lost in
the camp."
Shaukat, her
husband, explains that he and his illiterate family cannot read camp signs and
could easily get lost in Yar Hussain. And he insists that he is trying to
protect his wife. "There are also different tribes in the camp; I don' t
want my wife to be exposed to danger. There are many men walking around in the
camp during the day . And not everyone is a gentleman."
Mariam looks at
me and shows me her national identity card. There is no picture of her on it,
only her fingerprints. "Can you imagine? I am 28 years old now and I never
had a picture of me taken. None for my whole life." Mariam quietly takes
Noor Zaman, now almost three months old, in her arms and rocks him. Later she
will go and check on her father-in-law in the nearby tent. Then she will come
back to her own tent, bearing the heat, but hoping one day to go back to her
village in Swat where the temperatures are cooler and where she can play
outside with her children in the yard of her house, behind the high walls.
By Hélène Caux
in Yar
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