With men out of work, Syrian women become sole providers

AMMAN, Jordan — Farah slams the office door in tears, running down the stairs, through the parking lot and onto a hill overlooking downtown Amman. The 18-year-old tucks her headscarf in as she glares at the darkening sky, her father and brothers’ bickering still echoing in her mind.

Farah’s father hasn’t worked since their family left Homs in 2012. Barred from employment in Jordan, he watches the news all day, cursing the television scenes of Syria’s destruction until Farah’s brothers tell him to shut up. Ahmad, 17, has changed jobs three times in the last four months, making 13 Jordanian dinars ($18) a day for manual labor in restaurants and metalwork shops. Tamer, 15, doesn’t go to school either. He spends excess energy in fights with their father, pent up in the rented office they’ve turned into a makeshift home.

“They weren’t like this in Syria,” Farah said about her family, now in their third year as refugees in Jordan. Her mother works long hours at a physical rehabilitation center for Syrian amputees, leaving Farah to cope with tensions at home. She runs outside when it gets overwhelming, but not for too long. Young men leer at her on the street, whispering, “Ya Souriyeh, hey Syrian girl, come here.” Farah grits her teeth and ignores them, but still prefers not to be on her own.

Four years into the Syrian conflict, Jordan has become host to more than 620,000 refugees, of whom almost 80% are women and children. Amid evaporating aid, rising rents and crackdowns on refugee labor, single women head one in four of all Syrian refugee households. Many suffer psychological trauma, social marginalization, ongoing gender-based violence and little access to protection or information. Those who survive do so one day at a time, relying on female social networks for support. Women must reach out to one another, they say, because no one can survive this crisis alone.