Crafting a safer future for girls and young women in Lebanon
How UK aid is helping protect young Syrian and Lebanese girls from exploitation and forced marriage.
Two young girls crouch down on the floor decorating a wicker basket with plastic flowers and ribbons. They seem lost in the task as they take it in turns to use the glue gun to stick the decorations on.
They could be young girls in a craft lesson pretty much anywhere in the world. But in this case one is a Syrian refugee and the other is Lebanese. They’re in a community centre in southern Lebanon, just a few miles from the border with Syria.
Over 500,000 Syrian children are now refugees in Lebanon — roughly half of whom are girls. And they’re increasingly vulnerable.
Girls and young women from both communities are at increased risk of both sexual violence or early/forced marriage, in part due to pressures created by the conflict in Syria.
UK aid is supporting UNICEF, international NGOs such as InterSOS, and local partners, to provide safe spaces and vocational training for Syrian and Lebanese girls and women across Lebanon.
The basket decoration is just one activity in a programme designed to help protect young girls in Lebanon from exploitation. By bringing girls from Syrian and Lebanese communities together it is also helping them make friends and build relationships with each other.
The classes provide skills which are widely used by Syrian and Lebanese families at times of celebrations. The baskets can also potentially be sold as a result, as there is a local market for them. But the sessions also include discussion groups and information sessions focused on helping the girls to protect themselves against gender-based violence and early marriage.
Khadija is a Lebanese teacher working with Intersos, an Italian NGO that’s working in partnership with UNICEF to deliver the training.
“Most of the girls I meet are just worried about their futures”, she says.
“One of their main concerns is being married too early. They are worried about pregnancy. They worry about how they will cope, and would just rather be in school to finish their education”.
“Most of them know at least someone from their community who has been married early, and often this is because of financial pressures. We’re trying to work with them and their parents to provide information and alternatives to reduce these pressures.”
There are lots of cultural and financial pressures on both Syrian and Lebanese families, and the early marrying of daughters is often seen as a means of providing security to the girls and the families.
Riam*, aged 11, holds out the basket that she’s just decorated as part of the workshop. She’s a refugee from Idlib in Syria, and has been in southern Lebanon for just over a year after her family fled the fighting in her home country.
Like many Syrian refugees her age, she doesn’t want to show her face — partly because she’s scared; partly because she’s just a young girl and shy.
“Although it’s better here than in Syria, I’m still frightened to go out much, because I feel vulnerable and threatened sometimes”, she says.
“I haven’t been able to go to school for over a year, so these classes are really good and I’m enjoying being with other girls.
“Some girls I know are married already, but the thought of it worries me. I just want to be able to go to school and continue my education.”
“It’s nice just to be able to ask questions and get advice. It makes me feel a bit safer.”
At another community centre nearby, a group of teenage Syrian girls are taking part in a drawing activity as part of a discussion forum about early marriage.
One of the girls holds up a drawing of a bride and groom. The female character is dreaming of a building with a sign above it that says ‘school’; the man is thinking of a building that says ‘home’.
There is currently no law prohibiting child marriage in Lebanon, so sessions like these are a vital means of protecting young girls by giving them a safe space to ask questions and get help and access to support services if they need them.
Crises such the Syrian conflict can leave girls and women more vulnerable to many forms of violence, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual assault, forced marriage and trafficking. Targeted interventions to prevent such abuse are often not prioritised in the first stage of an emergency because the violence is not considered life-threatening.
Leading humanitarian agencies met in the UK in November 2013, to endorse a global commitment that will prioritise the protection of girls and women from violence and sexual exploitation in emergency situations.
International Development Secretary Justine Greening and Sweden’s International Development Minister Hillevi Engström co-chaired a high-level event in London for governments, UN heads, international NGOs and civil society organisations to agree a fundamental new approach to protecting girls and women in emergency situations, both man-made and natural disasters.
The UK has provided over £120 million towards UNICEF’s work supporting people affected by the conflict in Syria, as part of our overall £1.1 billion humanitarian response to the crisis.
UK support has provided nearly 200,000 sexual and gender based violence focussed interventions in Syria and its neighbouring countries between February 2012 and June 2015.
To find out more about how the UK is helping, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/world/syria.
This story was originally published at www.flickr.com.
