Scaling up support to refugee women and girls

Recognizing the risks

Within the last few years of crises in Lebanon, all types of gender-based violence (GBV) have been on the rise, and refugee women and girls are at disproportionate risk of suffering from it.

Refugee girls and women in male-headed households are at high risk of domestic violence. Other than cultural norms that tend to legitimize this violence, the huge amount of stress refugees live in exacerbates the problem. In many cases, mothers – and children – often fall into depression, and parents may grow neglective or emotionally disconnected from their children, resulting in everyone in the family suffering. Unfortunately, the cycle then tends to be repeated, with children becoming violent with their peers and even with their mothers.

Widows, divorced women, and their daughters, are at significant risk of sexual harassment and exploitation. They are the most vulnerable economically and usually have no support system. These women are often harassed or offered assistance in exchange for sexual services. Divorced women more specifically are heavily shamed and harassed, which is a big deterrent for women in abusive marriages to leave their husbands. Refugee girls who reach 15 years old assume a dangerous risk of early marriage. According to the most recent statistics, 23% of teenage Syrian refugee girls between 15 to 19 are married.

On top of obvious and drastic physical consequences of GBV for women, their mental health is also heavily affected. They are unsafe both at home and outside the house, they feel isolated and powerless, they lose all self-confidence and sense of worth, and many suffer from heavy depression or suicidal thoughts. At the spiritual level, many of these women feel like God must be punishing them for something. They desperately need to receive care and healing, including spiritually, to show them how precious they are in God’s eyes, and to remind them that He sees them and has not abandoned them.

To help support more at-risk refugee girls and women, MERATH substantially scaled up available services for them in the past six months through our local partners.

Scaling up support

In our partner learning centers, hundreds of refugee girls are receiving Christian education in safe environments where they are protected from child labor, early marriage, and domestic violence, and where they learn about their value in God’s eyes. In these centers, girls build important skills for their future and learn the importance of education for women, often becoming more educated than their parents. Many graduates share that when they have daughters themselves one day, they will do everything they can to give them a good education, no matter what the community around them tells them.

In parallel, 230 refugee women have been enrolled in adult literacy classes in Arabic and English. All these women, from different stages of life, have been given the opportunity they believed they would never have to finally learn to read and write, and they are proving to themselves – and to their families – that they are smart and capable. In the classrooms, the teachers – who are all believers – raise awareness of many societal issues, which always leads to deep discussions and debates. Hala, an adult literacy teacher, shared:

“In the time I have with the women, I use every opportunity to raise awareness on societal issues that they face in their community, such as early marriage or domestic violence. They ask me for advice, on how to raise their children for example. In everything, I try to teach them the Christian perspective, and to make them understand how much God values women.”

Finally, these vulnerable women and girls also receive professional counselling and psychosocial support. They learn to better understand their emotions, the emotions of people around them, and how to deal with them in a healthier way. They learn all this in safe spaces where they can be open about their struggles without judgement and where they receive a compassionate, Christian response. To make the centers even more healing, MERATH provided training in trauma-informed care to all the teachers and educators. One participant shared:

“In our church, we work with women who have gone through trauma. Not only Syrian, but Lebanese as well. This helped me gain a better understanding on how their brains work, and how I can be part of the solution and help them through their struggles.”