WAITING FOR THE SUN. WHEN EVERY MEETING CARRIES LOSS
Press Release
Coinciding with World Human Rights Day, the #16days to combat gender-based violence in a country where unequal rights and access to dedicated services for women still remain extremely difficult.
Rome, 10 December 2021 - Today 10 December marks World Human Rights Day worldwide, a day that coincides with the end of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence. For years, the NGO Un Ponte Per (UPP) has been working alongside and together with women and girls in North East Syria who continue to live in a state of emergency that has lasted more than a decade. In Syria, after ten years of war, there are still many people living displaced, with minimal or non-existent health services. An emergency that has left 13.4 million people in need of assistance and humanitarian aid: among them, the condition of women and adolescent girls is one of the most serious problems.
The Raqqa area, the former Syrian stronghold of ISIS/Daesh, is one of the areas where unequal rights and access to services for women remain extremely difficult. The situation has been exacerbated by the spread of COVID-19, which by causing increased levels of poverty, unemployment and psychosocial distress has exacerbated the level of domestic violence, in which women and girls always pay the highest price. Alongside the health emergency continues what has been called the Shadow Pandemic, that of gender-based violence against women and girls.
The COVID prevention measures and the frequent lockdowns in North-East Syria have slowed down but not stopped the incessant work of the UPP Protection Team that, thanks to the support of the Italian Cooperation, has set up a Safe Space for women and girls in Raqqa (WGSS - Women and Girls Safe Space) together with the local partner DOZ, and together with them they continue their daily commitment for their rights and to fight gender-based violence.
In November alone, 570 women and girls attended the Space and participated in the activities supported by the Italian Cooperation. This space, near the hospital in Raqqa, is a private place for women and girls only, where they can carry out group and recreational activities, receive psychosocial support, training and information on their rights and health. During these 16 days of activism, women and adolescent survivors of gender-based violence received non-stigmatising individual support services, run by local workers trained and supported by UPP.
Games, theatre sessions and recreational activities were organised to convey key messages on forced or early marriage, domestic violence, sexual violence and harassment, as well as self-awareness and awareness-raising sessions on women's rights and the importance of education for empowerment, seeking to give adolescent girls an opportunity to think about their goals and dreams. More than 150 women and girls participated in the activities.
With pride Aidha, a Safe Space worker specialising in countering gender-based violence, says: "These days for me were a warning to women and the world in general: violence can never be justified and no one ever deserves it, neither in Raqqa nor anywhere else. Unfortunately, as the UN reports in a press release, despite the emergency still ongoing, there is a shortage of funds to provide support to women and girls survivors of gender-based violence: only 7 per cent of communities across Syria have access to services dedicated to gender-based violence. Numbers so pitiless that they deserve no further comment, despite it being World Human Rights Day.
UPP continues to be one of the few humanitarian actors with the capacity to reach people in need throughout North East Syria, even in remote and insecure areas. The initiatives organised are part of a broader framework of interventions that UPP, thanks to the valuable support of the Italian Cooperation, has been carrying out in North East Syria, and in particular in Raqqa Governorate, since the beginning of the humanitarian emergency in 2015.
