SOHR exclusive interviews | Syrian girls and women sexually blackmailed by powerful officials in return for services and food
Syrian women are already the most affected by the consequences of a decade-long war, as they have lost almost all of their rights as humans, while social, economic and political malaise has made women shoulder extra burdens. As the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has repeatedly highlighted Syrian women’s sufferings, the following report focuses on some harassment and sexual blackmail cases which considerable number of women and girls were exposed to in Syria by workers and powerful officials in local charities and subsidized relief organizations in various parts of Syria. Such workers and officials exploit women, particularly in refugee camps, in return for offering illegal services and extra food allocations which do not meet the organizations’ standards which, for example, forbid providing aid to single women unless they have sons or a disabled child.
In her testimony to SORH, a mother of three children from Hama countryside, known by her initials as M.A. said “I have been sexually blackmailed by an official in the camps of Harem in north Syria region, after I had filed several complaints for not giving me food under the pretext that I recently registered in the camp. My neighbour in the camp advised me to write to the official on ‘WhatsApp’, so that he would fulfil my requests. After I had communicated with the official on several occasions, he asked me to meet with him. After we had met for several times, the speech between us became more intimate and I later sent him photos on ‘WhatsApp’ while I was in an ‘inappropriate’ position. He promised to marry me and raise my children, but I could realize that he was lying. At that time, I became able to get my food allocations as well as other aid allocations that were not distributed in the camp where I lived. This situation continued until he left the camp to Azaz city in northern Aleppo, as he was admitted in another relief organization.”
The woman added “the families living here are forces to share several things in one camp such as toilets, which may pave the way to sexual harassment or facilitate progress of wrongful and unethical relations.”
Another mother of a girl known by her initials as S.M. who has been displaced from Rif Dimashq to Mare’ city in Aleppo countryside and whose husband is detained in regime prisons shared her story with SOHR: “I was entrapped by an official who, in the beginning, asked for the data of detainees in regime prisons, so I communicated with him and sent him the needed data. He asked me to be in contact with him weekly, so that he could notify me if the name of my husband was found in any prison. After I communicated with him several times, he asked me to send him a photo of my face, then he gradually persuaded me to send him a photo showing me in a ‘lewd act’. At that time, I totally turned my back on my detained husband and started to plan my future with the official after I fell in love with him, but finally he told me that he could not start a serious relationship with me because of his high position in an organization.”
In order to avoid sexual exploitation, some women do not ask workers and officials for relief supplies, therefore depriving their children of their deserved allocations, while other women are forced to sell their bodies, so that they and their children can survive. Although these women despise such practices, they give up and unwillingly accept to keep up with a society tainted by corruption and patronage.
SOHR has interviewed another mother of four children known by her initials as D.A. living in Idlib countryside in the house of her husband who died a few years ago, as she said “I have been frequently harassed by a member of a ‘civil council’, as this member himself was delivering my aid allocations to my house, as I lived on the outskirts of a remote village. The civil council’s member offered several services to me before he proposed to marry me. When, I refused, he started to punish me by defaming me, which forced me not to leave my house for months until I left the whole village and moved to the town where my family lives.”
A relief worker in Aleppo countryside says that poverty and high rates of spinsterhood are major causes of sexual exploitation, which may develop into sexual blackmail in light of the breakdown of moral values and with thousands of female-headed household in the regions.
A girl displaced from al-Foua town in Idlib countryside to the temporary shelter centre in Jabrin in the regime-held areas in Aleppo province, told the Syrian Observatory that the director of a charity in Aleppo tried to take advantage of her family’s poor financial situation, and asked her to work for the charity. A few days after she agreed, he asked her to accompany him to a nearby house, she thought that she would register the data of a poor family. When she arrived at the house, she was surprised that it was empty. He told her that he owned the house, and he usually come here to rest only. He did not show any signs of bad intentions at first. In a few days he helped her family to find a house and they lived there at the expense of the charity, and services were provided during the first weeks of their displacement. But in return the girl said that she sold her body in that house, and could not refuse what her manager asked for fear of consequences. After she became pregnant with her first child, she asked the director to marry her in accordance with religious beliefs, but he refused completely, forcing her to abort a third-month-old baby in order to avoid shame and the social stigma.”
In another testimony from the Syrian regime-held areas, a lady known by her initials as “R.K.” from Homs province, who lost her daughter under pressure by an officer of the regime’s military intelligence in branch 261. She was in contact with him to help her disclose the fate of her detained husband. He asked her to come to his home in al-Waer neighbourhood, and once she arrived, he raped her at first meeting and asked her to come to his home whenever he asked her to do so. And then, she managed to flee to Lebanon through smugglers’ routes and entered the al-Beqaa region. Since then, no one heard any news from her.
A displaced man known by his initials as “A.R.” from Albu Kamal town in Deir ez-Zor countryside, tells the story of an old woman with three girls and two young children, who ended up outside al-Hawl camp in al-Hasakeh countryside. While the crowds were waiting, children screaming and the women crying outside the camp, a person known by his initials as “A.H.” showed up and started talking to people angrily and with disgust “Wait in line to register your names.” And then he spoke to one of the old lady’s daughters, “Hey you, come closer”, the lady replied: this is my daughter, and all his anger vanished at that moment. Then we followed him to an isolated room ‘an office’, as he said.
It didn’t occur to the lady that moment to ask him if he was a relief worker or camp official. The woman and her daughters followed him hoping to find a place to stay. Once they arrived, he said to them: “If you want a tent and all the necessities of living inside the camp, I can get you all that, but only if you let me stay tonight in your tent, I asked him why?
He replied angrily “Go and make it on your own,” and then the lady accepted the man’s request. The man came in the evening and brought food and drink and prepared the tent and its supplies, he gave them food and stayed with them until the lady fell asleep.
When the lady woke up, she was shocked that he was sleeping with one of her daughters and he took what he wanted, and she couldn’t do anything, and was forced to keep quiet for fear of scandal.”
With the prevalence of poverty and the breakdown of moral values, women are sexually exploited by a wide range of influential people and workers in relief organisations where some employees provide food and other basic necessities in return for sex, without regard to human values in a society that has been suffering from war for nearly ten years.
In light of these appalling stories of abuse suffered by Syrian women, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights renews its call to the international community and international organizations to protect women and their rights, to exert pressure on the warring parties in Syria to provide a humane environment for women in Syrian territory, by complying with the provisions of international law and the international covenants on Human Rights and international conventions on women’s rights.