MEET RAYA

We are originally from the city of Afrin in Syria. We were forced to flee in 2011, and moved to the Idlib province, where we stayed for four years. During this time, we couldn’t attend any school and life was very tough. We later fled from Idlib to Homs, but I couldn’t go back to school because I had missed too many years.

In 2018, although I was only 14 years old, my family forced me to marry my cousin back in Afrin, despite my pleas against it. My married life was an unbearable hell. My husband used to beat me to have sex, and his physical and psychological abuse continued for six months, until he immigrated illegally to Turkey. After six more months, I managed to get a divorce, and I moved to live with my uncles, with whom I spent two years.

At one of my uncles’, I suffered another kind of hell at the hands of my aunt. For one entire year, she would beat me, force me to work as a maid, and insult me daily. I finally succeeded in convincing my uncle to send me back to my family near Homs, which could only be done through a smuggler because the international road was cut off. The journey was perilous and took four days.

I have been living with my family since, in a small place in a poor neighborhood. It was very difficult for me to adapt as a young divorcee. People easily judge you and my mother would not allow me to go out much so that people in our neighborhood would not think or say bad things about me.

I live with my father, mother, and five siblings. The economic crisis has worsened a lot lately, and we have eliminated basic items off our food consumption such as meat, fruits, and cheese. My father supports the family, but his income is unstable, and my 12-year-old brother used to work in car repairs, but due to his tachycardia he stopped working. I really want to find a job to help my father, because his work is precarious, and I am afraid that I will be forced to remarry.

One of my mother’s friends brought me to the church to receive psychological support after she saw my psychological state and heard about the violence I was subjected to. She explained to my family that the church was a safe place and that the services provided by the project contribute to deep changes in the women benefiting from the program. There, I participated in several awareness, recreational, and counseling sessions over several months. During that time, I also benefited from additional services such as food baskets, vocational courses, and more.

The Women’s Support Center changed my life for the better. When I first came, I was sad and broken. I was extremely shy and couldn’t communicate with other people as I was embarrassed not knowing how to read and write. I felt that all the other girls were better than me, and that somehow, if I was wronged so much, maybe I deserved it. All my painful memories would not leave me, I had so many questions to God, and I did not go out of the house by fear of stigmatization. My mother would always remind me that because I am divorced, I am not entitled to the same things my friends are entitled to.

But after the church took me by the hand and provided me with psychological support, my life began to change. The church encouraged me to learn to read and write, which increased my self-confidence. I remember the day I graduated from the literacy course: when I received the certificate, I was looking at my case manager with confidence and joy, before I even looked at my own mother. I was proud to show her that she was right to believe in me.

Not only did she believe in me, but she recommended me as one of the most committed girls of the program and encouraged me to continue by attending a beautician vocational training. When I learnt that, I almost flew with joy. It felt as if I had begun to achieve what I always dreamed of. My parents also changed in the process, especially my mother. She started trusting me more, letting me make my own choices, and go out of the home unaccompanied.

Today, I became an influential person in my family and community and made friends with the women in the center. I felt empowered to refuse a second forced marriage, and I prioritized my vocational training and my dream to become a women hairdresser.

My younger siblings also benefited from the activities offered by the center in the children’s room and the program for young people, which improved their behavior and language. It decreased a lot the violence they used to treat each other with and gave them healthy ambition and hope in the future. The most important change is that they resumed their education, by joining the center’s “drop-out program” and receiving for free all the stationery they needed.

I wish to own my own beauty salon, work there, become a productive woman to support myself and never be forced to marry someone I don’t want to. My belief that God would not abandon me kept me going through hard times. When I got enrolled in the project and I started to benefit from it, I knew for sure it was God’s hand behind it all.

Please pray for Syria, for us to overcome the violence we have been subjected to, and that God will give me the strength to continue learning and working.