In Zaatari refugee camp, early marriage often trumps school
Two-thirds of the school-age population at the Syrian refugee camp in Zaatari, Jordan, are receiving education, but many of those who are not are being pushed by their families into early marriage.
MAFRAQ, Jordan — Rahaf still giggles when she talks about her husband. Newly married to another resident of Zaatari, the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, the 16-year-old from Daraa carries a picture from their wedding day under her dress, “just above her heart,” she says.
“I’m lucky. He’s Syrian, too,” she gushes. Her husband, Gassem, is 25 and the couple hopes to have children soon.
Such is the case for other Syrian girls living in Zaatari: The path of marriage trumped the option of going to school.
“I wanted to go to school,” she says, “but my father didn’t let me. He didn’t think it was safe. He’d say, ‘What’s the use? It [the degree] will be useless when you go back home.’”
