Syrian Women line for hours to get food and think ahead of where they can move next after being driven out from their homes for failing to pay the rent. For this year’s International Women’s Day, nothing has much changed for women in Syria since the war broke out in their country in 2011.
"Life is a challenge for those who do not receive," said Nour, a local partner of Open Doors based on Aleppo. An article published by Christian Today tackled women who were left behind because of the 10-long-year war on Syria. According to the article, the Syrian government has limited support for women, enough provision for women whose husbands died in the war for fighting the Syrian Armed Forces.
The article narrated the day-to-day struggle of a young Christian mother named Elham. She lined for long hours to buy a little amount of bread she's entitled to within her quota. The same goes happened when she buys fuel for cooking, as the household gets a maximum of two hours of electricity daily. Then walked her home carrying a 40 kilogram-gasoline-cylinder alone.
It's not just Elham's but it's the usual daily life of Syrian women who have been left behind by their husbands who either died due to the civil war or never came back for a better life.
Nuor explained how these women run for their lives with no support every time war had to start again. The Church in Syria provides the essential needs for these women to survive.
"Especially those who came to Aleppo from the north, they arrived just with only the clothes they were wearing, nothing else," Nuor said.
Nuor explained since the civil war started in March 2011, many heads of the families had escaped to safer countries, selling all their properties with the promise of being reunited again with their families. As a result, mothers became the breadwinner of their families. The average monthly salary of a typical job is around $50 and according to the report, 20 percent goes to bread alone.
"With high inflation, everything is so expensive. Some women are not able to wait in the long queues for hours because they need to look after their children, and so they have to buy fuel, for example, from the black market and it's very, very expensive," said Nuor.
Open Doors' local partners continually extend their help for those Christian women being left behind due to war. They actively share food, clothes, furniture, and rental fees. Their project provides vocational training for these displaced women for them to get a job that would sustain their living in the future.
"Our main focus is how to equip them to become independent and build their future for themselves and their children," Nuor said.
According to Open Doors, there were 638,000 Christians in Syria which comprise 3.3 percent of the population. They worked with the local Syrian Church in establishing community centers named 'Centers of Hope' which focused on providing services to Syrian Christians and neighbors with literacy training, discipleship, and trauma counseling.
