GAZA, ENDURING WINTER AND HUNGER
Thanks to the 'Free to Break' campaign: immediate care and protection for women and girls survivors of violence.
Cases of gender-based violence tragically increase in war contexts. Lower wages, unsafe working environments, reduced access to education expose women to less access to services and early marriages. All factors that increase the risk of gender-based violence.
Un Ponte Per has created safe spaces in Syria to provide protection for women and girls survivors of gender-based violence and child marriage. And supported clinics to ensure reproductive health and psychosocial support.
Lasu, Protection Specialist in Raqqa with Un Ponte Per, says:
"We work to ensure protection and rights for children exposed to violence, child labour, early marriage.We help them to identify the risks and provide them with the tools they need to report incidents of violence and abuse, especially prevalent among girls and young women".
In Syria, women and girls pay the highest price for the war. They are the first to lose the opportunity to study, to be exposed to violence, to be discriminated against. And the last to be supported.
In North East Syria after 13 years of conflict still 2 million people are in need. The emergency affects women and girls differently and contributes to gender-based violence, economic inequalities, child marriage and child labour. Defending the rights of women and girls in Syria is crucial to ensure protection and active participation in the public life of their country.
Un Ponte Per has been present in Syria since 2015 to bring care, medicine and protection to all and sundry, rebuilding a free, public health system and providing essential health services such as field clinics, hospitals, training and protection for the mental and physical wellbeing of the population, particularly women and children.
"They experienced things that even we adults could not have managed. When we arrived in Raqqa they didn't play with their schoolmates, they didn't even have friends, they didn't trust anyone. They were dark and shy.Today they smile and manage to form relationships with their peers,' says Nada, the mother of Mariam (8), Bissan (11) and Ghazal (13).
Syria continues to be squeezed between a humanitarian and economic crisis. Humanitarian needs are at an all-time high after more than 12 years of war and in the wake of the devastating double earthquakes that hit the region in February. According to the UN, nearly 12 million people - more than half of Syria's population - do not have enough food and another 2.9 million are at risk of starvation.
In 2020 Un Ponte Per opened 3 Safe Spaces in Raqqa to provide safe places, protection and psychological wellbeing for women and children.
In our Safe Spaces, anti-violence and child protection workers coordinate to ensure a specialised psycho-social support pathway, depending on the case.
In particular, thanks to the 'Free to Break' campaign:
Un Ponte Per launched the 'Free to Break' fundraising campaign in December 2023 to ensure child protection, economic participation and access to care for women and girls in Syria in the three Safe Spaces in Raqqa and in clinics and hospitals across North East Syria.
The campaign was created in response to the crisis of women's and girls' rights in the country: in Raqqa, 60 per cent of boys and girls do not go to school; every year, 25 per cent of girls in the country are forced to get married before they turn 18; only 7 out of 100 women survivors of gender-based violence have access to psychological support and protection services; the health system is collapsing and especially in camps for displaced people, health is an emergency.
The 'Free to Break' campaign has enabled us to support Syrian girls and women who, amidst many obstacles, are today breaking down walls of stereotypes and oppression to rebuild their dignity and determine their own future.
