In a refugee camp near the Greek city of Thessaloniki, I treated a Kurdish woman in her early twenties for a throat infection. Before she left, the translator asked her if there was anything else we could help her with. She broke down in tears. She had four children who she was struggling to look after and keep clean. She showed us a photograph of her children, just one year ago, well dressed and smiling. This woman was not only tired and desperate, she was ashamed of her living conditions. The food was bad, toilets revolting and she could not properly look after her family.
This refugee crisis is the worst in living memory. The UNHCR currently estimates that there are 65.3 million people displaced from their homes by conflict and persecution globally. Many are women and 41% are children.
Women were deliberately not drinking water so they could avoid a trip to the revolting portable toilets
In times of crisis women bear the brunt. All refugees are marginalised, but the women are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and physical and sexual harm. Many are victims of unimaginable atrocities as they flee their home countries. Pregnant women and those with small children are uniquely vulnerable on the dangerous journey to Europe. Throughout these camps there are widespread reports of gender-based violence.
In the camps women are under extraordinary pressure. Many have young families to provide for. Living in small tents they need to look after their children, feed their families, keep them clean and try to retain some normality with dignity.
Women are hit hardest by poor access to sanitation and water. Washing clothes for large families in a refugee camp becomes an impossible task. Summertime Greece is hot, in the camp where I worked women felt they could not keep clean and were deliberately not drinking water so they could avoid a trip to the revolting portable toilets; just six for a camp housing 600. They were risking dehydration and kidney and urine infections. One woman cried as she described the shame she felt about having to urinate in a bucket inside a tent that she shared with her large family.
Asides from the issue of sanitation, the toilet area was poorly lit and women felt afraid and unsafe going there at night, with reports of intimidation and fights.
In the rush to respond to the large numbers of refugees arriving, many of the camps have sprung up in previously abandoned warehouses. They were not designed for human habitation. However, provision of clean, well-lit sanitation facilities, which a large number of people can use is not a difficult task and something that could be easily addressed in the camps.
Another recurring theme was that women did not want to be intimate with their partners. Many felt pressured into having sexual relations and there were newly pregnant women in the camps. Women have distinct health needs that can easily be overlooked in the response to acute medical needs. Provision of good maternity care and being pragmatic about access to family planning should be prioritised.
Many of the women had previously assumed the role of carer in their family, and many were deeply upset by their inability to carry out that role in the camps. The UNHCR emphasises that women must be involved specifically with the management and distribution of resources. There was little evidence of this on the ground in the camps. Unfamiliar and unpalatable food was given out. Many of the women complained that by the time it arrived it was hardly edible.
We need to empower women in the camps
Central to the humanitarian response should be empowering these women who have lost everything. Many of the women felt they weren’t being listened to. Here simple, pragmatic things can make a huge difference; volunteers in one of the camps organised distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables, which were needed to cook traditional meals from back home. Another gave out cooking utensils. Many of the women were delighted by this. Another volunteer gave pillows to each of the tents. These small acts of kindness do not solve the problems but they do give some comfort and dignity.
These women see no solution to their problems … They wait with their children for their lives to start again
However, the painful reality is that these women see no solution to their problems within reach. They wait with their children for their lives to start again. They are terrified for their children’s future as they have no access to formal education. One said that a prison sentence would be better than being in the camps, because at least then they would know when they would get to leave.
The responses of local people in the towns hosting the refugees was mainly one of kindness and compassion. The volunteer response, though at times chaotic, shows some of the large amount of goodwill towards refugees in Europe. The response of some of the European countries to the refugees is shameful, especially the failure of the UK to provide a safe haven for the many unaccompanied child refugees.
The world has been slow in its response to the refugee crisis, but this is an issue that will affect us all for many generations. These women have faced the most appalling conditions with the utmost of resilience and dignity. As the refugee crisis slips down the news agenda and out of the public’s mind, these families are going nowhere. If Lebanon, a country with a population of under 5 million can host 1.5 million refugees, then surely the rest of the world can play its part too.
Translation by Nada Sarsour, Amer Sawaf, Mohamad Abou Ras, Mariam Saleh and Mohamad Namo.
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Small acts of kindness ... but it"s not enough for women in refugee camps
