* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Of the Syrian women and girls caught in the crisis, more than 500,000 are pregnant and in desperate need of reproductive health services.
As we review the year’s news highlights, one story that deserves greater attention is the plight of Syrian women, who did not wage war but pay a heavy price for the conflict.
An estimated 12.2 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance, including 7.6 million internally displaced persons and 3.2 million refugees, of whom nearly four million are women of childbearing age.
Despite tremendous hardship, they continue to do their best for their children and families, and need increased global support to meet their needs and strengthen their hope for the future.
In good times, becoming pregnant and having a baby can be daunting. During conflict, it can be a life or death situation. Yet as frightening as it is, Syrian women summon the courage every day to survive and to give birth.
Since the conflict began, nearly 115,000 Syrian children have been born as refugees in five host countries in the region— Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. And many more babies were born inside Syria.
Of the Syrian women and girls caught in the crisis, more than half a million are pregnant and in desperate need of reproductive health and protection services. An estimated 110,000 people, mostly women and children, are at increased risk of gender-based violence due to insecurity and poor living conditions in camps or informal settlements in Syria and in the bordering countries.
One 22-year-old woman with three children who fled across the border told us, “Our lives changed in one day when we had to flee to Jordan from the horror and violence in Syria.”
“Without the help of the social workers here in the centre, I would have committed suicide,” the young woman said.
She is one of many women and girls who benefit from the network of women’s centres and safe spaces that are supported by UNFPA in Syria and neighbouring countries.
Our frontline staff and partners provide maternal health care and family planning, and protection and counselling to address gender-based violence, and are committed to do more.
I visited the region and can tell you that our life-saving work is vital, but remains under-funded, falling far short of what is required.
While the risks facing women and girls vary significantly, common areas of concern include an increase in domestic violence, early and forced marriage, harassment and restricted movement, sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking and sexual violence.
Many Syrian women are overwhelmed by economic strife, and psychologically scarred by the losses they have experienced.
More than 145,000 families that fled Syria are headed by women whose husbands or partners were killed, captured or separated from them during the conflict. As a result they are caught in a spiral of hardship, isolation and anxiety while they fight for survival, and struggle to maintain their dignity, and protect and provide for their families.
The growing number of refugees makes it difficult for hosting countries to provide essential services due to the continuous economic and political challenges they are facing.
In collaboration with governments, partner United Nations agencies, implementing partners, and the media, UNFPA is leading multi-sector gender-based violence prevention and response programmes, improving access to equitable reproductive health services including for safe motherhood, empowering and engaging youth, and working to advance gender equality and reproductive rights.
Since the crisis started, we have:
- Established and supported 34 women’s centres, 123 sexual and reproductive health clinics and mobile teams, and 15 youth spaces and sport fields in Syria and hosting countries
- Provided 4 million reproductive health services to Syrian women and girls, including more than 80,000 UNFPA health vouchers in Syria.
- Ensured safe delivery for more than 2,000 babies in UNFPA-supported clinics in camps in Iraq and Jordan
- Provided family planning counselling to hundreds of thousands of women and girls
- Provided gender-based violence services for 200,000 Syrian refugees
- Provided dignity and hygiene kits to 300,000 Syrians
- Trained 3,600 Syrian youth refugees on peer education and sexual and reproductive health
With the support of donors, UNFPA’s programmes extend hope as they save lives and protect human rights and dignity by ensuring sexual and reproductive health and protection services across Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt.
Additional financial and human resources are urgently needed to maintain and expand these emergency programmes in response to the increasingly desperate humanitarian crisis in Syria, which is worsening as winter approaches.
In a crisis such as Syria’s, meeting the needs of women and girls is one of the best ways to ensure the health, security and well-being of families and communities now and in the future.
Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin is a United Nations Under-Secretary-General and the Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.
