The Political Voices of Women

This is a guest post from Slim at No Fish, No Nuts.

It’s been five months since Riverbend last posted on her blog, Baghdad Burning; that last post was on her family’s move to Syria, joining the 2 million Iraqis who have fled their homes to escape the violence and segregation that have come to dominate everyday life in Iraq.

In her last post, Riverbend wrote about Syria’s beauty, and seemed hopeful, if tentative, about living there:

Syria is a beautiful country- at least I think it is. I say “I think” because while I perceive it to be beautiful, I sometimes wonder if I mistake safety, security and normalcy for ‘beauty’. In so many ways, Damascus is like Baghdad before the war- bustling streets, occasional traffic jams, markets seemingly always full of shoppers… And in so many ways it’s different. The buildings are higher, the streets are generally narrower and there’s a mountain, Qasiyoun, that looms in the distance. … The first weeks here were something of a cultural shock. It has taken me these last three months to work away certain habits I’d acquired in Iraq after the war. It’s funny how you learn to act a certain way and don’t even know you’re doing strange things- like avoiding people’s eyes in the street or crazily murmuring prayers to yourself when stuck in traffic. It took me at least three weeks to teach myself to walk properly again- with head lifted, not constantly looking behind me.

But the general view of refugee life in Syria is more bleak. From the U.N.’s Worldpress, in January:

Iraqi Fatima Ahmaji earns money to feed her family in Damascus by starving herself. Living with her two children in a bare room in Sayeda Zeinab, the Iraqi-majority suburb of Damascus, Fatima does not eat from dawn until dusk on behalf of people who have missed days of fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
…
The Syrian government does not allow the estimated 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria to work legally and an increasing number of refugees have taken up “harmful practices,” from prolonged fasting to prostitution, in order to survive.

“People are finding themselves in extreme situations and at the worst end we’re seeing child labor, early marriage, and survival sex,” said Sybella Wilkes, spokesperson for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Syria. “This is something that these families would never have resorted to in Iraq. They’re facing drastic measures in order to keep some semblance of quality of life.”

According to the latest survey by the UNHCR of 754 Iraqi families in Syria, 33 percent say their financial resources will last for three months or less, while 24 percent are relying on remittances from family abroad to survive.

Some refugees are choosing not to stick it out.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have returned from Syria since mid-August…

According to a UNHCR study, 46 percent, by far the largest component, left because they could no longer afford life in Syria.

Iraqi children have in particular borne a disproportionate burden of the harsh economic reality. The United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) estimates that 80 percent of Iraqi children in Syria do not attend school and that at least 10 percent of Iraqi children are being forced to work for an average daily income of $1 or less.

But according to the preznit, things in Iraq just keep getting better and better. It begs the question of why, then, so many refugees plan to leave Iraq forever, and only return when they are hungry, penniless and have no other options.

Clap harder, everybody!

All snark aside, I hope Riverbend is well, and that she is simply too busy to worry about blogging.