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http://www.inclusivesecurity.org/10-more-ways-syrian-women-are-building-peace-and-democracy/
SYRIA – WAYS SYRIAN WOMEN ARE BUILDING PEACE & DEMOCRACY
By
Kristin Williams
- June 9, 2015
What does bravery
look like? What strength and character does it take to risk imprisonment,
torture, and even death for the sake of a future you may not see?
I know what it
looks like. I’ve witnessed it in Syrians of all ages, religions, and
ethnicities. I’ve seen it in hundreds of simple and not-so-simple acts of
defiance, retold to me matter-of-factly over tea. I marvel at it every time the
women who travel from inside Syria to attend our trainings manage to laugh or
smile, which is often. When they willingly return to their besieged country
vowing to work even harder for peace, its presence overwhelms me.
Syrian women have
made the exceptional ordinary. The stories I’ve heard over the last few years
are only a fraction (in case you missed it, here’s another 10 Ways Syrian Women Are Building Peace and Democracy),
yet they epitomize what is possible in this “intractable” conflict.
So what does
bravery look like? It looks like this.
Note: because of
the security risks, all names and exact locations have been omitted.
1. Stopping child
marriage
Photo: European
Commission/Flickr
To cope with the
economic devastation of war, many Syrian families are selling their teenage
daughters into marriage. In one ISIS-controlled city—where foreign fighters, in
particular, offer hefty dowries—an estimated two in ten girls are victims of
this practice.
There, a group of
female activists is going house to house to convince families that early
marriage is damaging to girls’ physical and mental health. If ISIS finds out,
they’ll execute the women. But the group uses this conservatism to their
advantage—under the full-length abayas they’re forced to wear, the women are
free to move through checkpoints without being identified. They’ve saved at
least 50 young girls over the course of three months.
2. Uniting
refugees and host communities
Photo: European
Commission/Flickr
Four million
Syrians have fled the country to seek safety in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and
Iraq. This influx, now going on four years, has understandably caused tensions
between refugees and the communities that host them. It costs governments
significant money to host large refugee populations, and Syrians may compete
with locals for employment.
One group of
female refugees in southern Turkey is trying to bridge the gaps between their
Turkish and Syrian classmates at university. They’ve developed activities to
help students recognize and discuss common areas of interest, such as
literature and history. Another group is providing refugees with Turkish language
training, the first step toward communicating across divides.
3. Policing the
streets
By now, you’ve
heard about the female Kurdish peshmerga fighters who are battling the Islamic
State in both Syria and Iraq. But there are other women providing much-needed
security and rule of law in one opposition-held city. Two years ago, 20 of them
banded together to form an all-female police brigade. At first, the community
shunned them; but now they’ve gained trust, respect, and even their own
station.
They’ve proven
particularly adept at working with female victims—especially of gender-based
violence—who report crimes more often to the women’s brigade. Unlike policemen,
they can enter conservative households when only women are present, providing
families with critical services.
4. Listening to
marginalized groups
Women in rural
villages face a unique set of challenges. Their political, economic, social,
and security needs may be different from those of women in large and small
cities. Yet, because of their remote location, they are often overlooked.
Female activists
in one region controlled by the al-Nusra Front organized a campaign to conduct
a series of consultations with 10 villages in the neighboring mountains. They
found out about many problems, including that al-Nusra militants were randomly
arresting young men from one of the villages. With the local women, they staged
a sit-in; the detainees were released two days later. They are also developing
economic empowerment programs for rural women to address crippling poverty.
5. Reopening
schools
Photo: DFID/Flickr
In ISIS-controlled
areas, where one of the extremists’ first actions was to stamp out education,
opening a school is among the riskiest endeavors anyone can undertake. Despite
that danger, one group of women negotiated to open two private schools. They
marched to the office of a local leader and convinced him that Islamic
scripture favors education.
They can only keep
the schools open two hours a day because the electricity is out the rest of the
time. But they’ve enrolled hundreds of children who had been denied education
for much of the last year; thus far, ISIS has left them alone to teach.
6. Helping
families survive
The lack of job
opportunities inside Syria and within refugee communities makes women and
children particularly vulnerable. In addition, women are not always able to
work outside the home, both because of their family duties and because their
movement may be more restricted.
Several groups of
activists are developing women’s professional skills, teaching them computing,
first aid, English, and how to make handicrafts and clothes. In one area near
Idlib, they formed an institute that’s trained over 300 people. Another group
in a refugee area of Turkey established a cheap hostel for single Syrian women,
to reduce the risk that they may turn to prostitution, forced marriage, or
other exploitative activities in order to survive.
7. Reforming
corrupt courts
The judicial
system in Syria is shattered. The regime uses courts, including a special one
set up via a sweeping “Counterterrorism Law” two years ago, to stifle dissent
and punish peaceful activists. The Islamic State and others implement sharia
courts that have publicly executed hundreds of people for petty “crimes.”
In one Kurdish
area, there’s a different problem: the reigning political party established
autonomous “people’s courts” that follow neither Syrian nor international law.
One group of female activists, including several lawyers, is challenging this
system, which they say allows loyalists to escape punishment while targeting
those who support the opposition. They are uniting different groups to speak
out against the sweeping authority of these judicial dictators.
8. Vaccinating
children
Women have
distributed and monitored humanitarian aid throughout the war. Many are also
stepping in to provide essential services that, in peacetime, would be the
responsibility of the government.
For instance, a
group of women near Idlib led a campaign to vaccinate newborns during the
critical first few days of life. Partnering with a local medical aid
organization, they spent seven months bringing vaccines directly to people’s
homes, since the regime continues to bomb the city. They successfully immunized
about 600 children during each month of the campaign.
9. Disarming youth
In one city near
Idlib, many children between the ages of 13 and 18 have obtained weapons,
attempting to imitate their fathers. But the proliferation of arms is turning
schoolboy fights into dangerous street brawls. In addition, there are many
militias in the area that are recruiting youth for the frontlines.
A group of women
is pushing the local council to stem this dangerous trend. They’ve asked the
authorities to pass a law stating that children under age 18 cannot carry
weapons and that arms purveyors cannot sell to them. The local council promised
to do so months ago, but the women are maintaining pressure until the law
passes.
10. Mobilizing a
movement for peace
Photo:
SyriaFreedom/Flickr
All of the women
Inclusive Security trains, with our local partner the Center
for Civil Society and Democracy, commit to mobilizing a “peace
circle” of at least ten other women when they return to their home communities.
Most of the activities above were initiated by these leaders, who taught others
the same skills: how to analyze the problems in their local areas and determine
strategies for addressing them.
In addition,
“peace circles” have run awareness raising campaigns for coexistence and human
rights, supported current and former detainees with legal and psychological
counseling, successfully lobbied to remove names from the regime’s list of wanted
activists, and much more. The energy and creativity of these women is
boundless. They are Syria’s best hope for a peaceful future.