As war drags, Syrian women enter the job market

International

-DW News

Syria,
Aug
28:
About
six
weeks
ago,
Moufida
Rahmon
started
seeing
her
neighborhood
with
different
eyes.
Ever
since
the
38-year-old
opened
her
own
small
dairy
business
at
the
refugee
camp
Maarat
Misrin,
just
north
of
Idlib,
her
neighbors
became
her
customers
—
and
potential
customers.

“I
was
able
to
make
$40
during
the
first
month,
which
was
enough
to
feed
my
sons
and
me,”
the
mother
of
two
told
DW.

Her
eyes
tell
how
proud
she
is.
“It’s
the
first
time
that
I
feel
hope
for
a
better
life
after
everything
that
happened
in
the
past
years,”
she
said.

On
August
29,
2012,
just
over
a
year
into
the
war,
Rahmon’s
husband
became
one
of
the
many
people
disappeared.

Initially,
she
had
decided
to
stay
in
the
family’s
house
in
Al-Tah,
but,
after
Russia
entered
the
war
on
behalf
of
Syria’s
government
in
2015,
her
place
went
up
in
flames
following
Russian
shelling.

“I
lost
my
home,
everything
we
owned,
and
we
had
to
flee
overnight
when
Syrian
regime
forces
seized
the
town,”
she
said.

Since
then,
she
and
her
children
had
been
living
in
absolute
poverty
in
a
small
tent
in
the
refugee
camp
Maarat
Misrin.

Rahmon
and
her
family
had
depended
on
international
aid
for
support
as
she
had
neither
studied
nor
trained
for
a
job.

Earlier
this
year,
the
camp
management
approached
Rahmon
with
an
idea.
“They
offered
me
a
vocational
training
in
the
dairy
business,”
she
said.
“Other
women
encouraged
me
and
promised
to
buy
my
products,”
she
added.

After
a
15-day
intensive
course
and
a
$800
project
grant
from
the
UN
Office
for
the
Coordination
of
Humanitarian
Affairs,
which
enabled
her
to
buy
products
and
tools,
she
set
up
shop
in
her
tent.

So
far,
her
neighbors
have
kept
their
word
and
are
buying
her
milk
products,
as
well
as
ordering
milk
and
cheese.
“I
really
hope
that
this
business
will
expand
and
will
enable
me
to
change
our
situation
for
good,”
she
said.

As
a
consequence
of
the
deteriorated
economic
conditions,
the
ongoing
armed
conflict
and
the
lack
of
male
breadwinners,
Rahmon
is
by
far
not
the
only
Syrian
woman
who
entered
the
labor
market
for
the
first
time.

According
to
this
year’s
Syria
Economic
Monitor
report
by
the
World
Bank,
women’s
workforce
participation
doubled
from
13%
in
2010
to
26%
in
2021.
In
comparison,
the
proportion
of
men
increased
only
slightly,
from
72%
to
76%,
over
the
same
period.

New
directions

Since
2017,
the
UN’s
Syria
Cross-Border
Humanitarian
Fund
has
invested
$76
million
into
67
small
scale
businesses,
vocational
trainings
and
seed
grants
in
Syria’s
northwest.
“Fifty-one
percent
of
the
people
supported
by
these
interventions
are
women,”
Madevi
Sun-Suon,
spokeswoman
of
the
Turkish
United
Nations
Office
for
the
Coordination
of
Humanitarian
Affairs,
told
DW.

One
of
these
projects
is
the
Spark
of
Hope
organization
in
downtown
Idlib,
which
is
run
by
Sawsan
Saeed.
“I
support
women
at
thinking
out
of
the
box,”
the
energetic
48-year-old
told
DW.

One
of
her
most
recent
ideas
was
to
train
women
to
repair
mobile
phones
—
a
business
in
Syria
that
used
to
be
entirely
in
the
hands
of
men.

And
yet
it
didn’t
take
her
long
to
find
an
instructor
and
enough
interested
women
to
start
the
course.
“The
women
excelled
in
it
and
are
very
busy
now,”
Saeed
said.

Twenty-three-year-old
Enas
Manna
applied
for
UN-financed
vocational
training
as
photographer.
“Since
I
didn’t
have
the
money
to
complete
my
studies
at
the
University
of
Idlib,
I
felt
lost
for
about
a
year,”
she
told
DW.
However,
following
the
training,
she
opened
her
own
photo
studio
and
even
employed
a
couple
of
women.
“This
opportunity
helped
me
to
make
enough
money
to
return
to
university
despite
the
ongoing
war,”
she
said.

Changing
face
of
Idlib

Over
11
years
of
civil
war,
life
has
become
increasingly
precarious
in
the
region
surrounding
Idlib,
formerly
an
agriculturally
rich
part
of
Syria.

According
to
the
UN,
2.8
million
displaced
people
live
in
1,500
refugee
camps
in
this
region,
one
of
the
last
strongholds
of
resistance
against
Syrian
President
Bashar
al-Assad
and
his
allies.

“These
civilians
in
and
around
Idlib
are
still
resisting
the
Assad-regime,
just
like
the
various
armed
groups
who
found
shelter
in
this
area.
In
turn,
the
social
structure
of
this
region
has
changed
significantly,”
Anna
Fleischer,
head
of
the
Beirut
office
of
the
Heinrich
Böll
foundation,
told
DW.

It
is
fair
to
say
that
this
situation
hasn’t
improved
the
lives
of
women
either.

“On
the
one
hand,
women
in
Idlib
fear
the
Syrian
military
and
the
Russian
forces,
and
on
the
other
hand,
the
Islamist
militias
like
Hayat
Tahrir
Sham
and
others
are
also
not
the
biggest
fans
of
the
idea
that
women
read,
work
and
are
financially
independent,”
Fleischer
said.

Fleischer,
who
previously
worked
for
the
Women
Now
for
Development
organization
also
knows
firsthand
about
many
projects
that
continue
in
the
Idlib
region
after
activists
are
forced
out
of
cities
that
have
fallen
back
into
the
hands
of
Syria’s
regime.
“However,
in
Idlib,
they
have
to
work
under
the
radar,”
she
said.

Source: DW