“FAR FROM HOME: The 13 worst refugee crises for girls.” Part 2

STORY 4

The barricaded compounds, innumerable security checks and corner-by-corner police presence are constant reminders of the violence that the people of Afghanistan live with every day. So it would be easy to grow pessimistic about the future of the country. But in my recent visit, I also saw another side of Afghanistan, one that doesn’t make as many headlines. I met Afghanistan’s women and girls.

I drew deep inspiration from the Kabul Women’s Association, which began 10 years ago as a feeding program for Afghan widows. It now mobilizes 10,000 women who learn about their rights (in regard to employment, inheritance and other issues), develop their own livelihoods — particularly with regard to livestock — and speak up about key issues such as girls’ education and child marriage. In the process, they solve not only their own problems and those of their families’, but also their community’s too.

One of the women, I’ll call her Basima (I’m not using real names to protect the womens’ safety), said that her brother-in-law would not let her daughters go to school. Unfortunately, that’s too common in places that undervalue girls’ education in favor of boys’. And when that place is war-battered like Afghanistan, the barriers only become more entrenched. But by confronting these challenges head-on, the Kabul Women’s Association has helped assure that Basima’s three daughters, once forbidden to attend school, stayed in the classroom. They now attend university, even though Basima herself remains illiterate.

Her inability to read, however, has hardly obstructed her efforts to write a new chapter in her community’s development: Basima has become a respected advocate, in spite of the risks that surface when women challenge long-held traditional roles. Among other efforts, she successfully petitioned local authorities to deliver electricity to a 38-household neighborhood. And her daughters plan to return to Basima’s home to teach children to read.

When I traveled outside of Kabul, to Parwan Province in northeast Afghanistan, I met more women — and children — who are dreaming big. At one school, when asked what they wanted to become when they grew up, all the kids raised their hands to declare their intent to become doctors or teachers. And asked what they like most about school, one eager student yelled: “All the studying!”

Just fifteen years ago, less than a million Afghan children attended school – nearly all of them boys.  With critical support from the U.S., over 16,000 schools have been built and 150,000 teachers trained – more than a third women.  As a result, over 9 million children today attend school and nearly half of them are girls.But we can’t let those gains slip away.

That starts by supporting incredible teachers like the ones I spoke to in Parwan. One teacher said she grew up in the local community and, thanks to a greater emphasis on girls’ education, was able to complete two years of college. “Now I want to serve my people,” she told me, “especially girls.” She and the other staff plan to add classrooms, a science lab and maybe even a small playground.

Listening to her, I found myself thinking how much hope and progress comes from so little. It costs about $300 to send an Afghan girl or a boy to elementary school for one year, including teacher training, classroom expenses and curriculum. Over the past decade, CARE has engaged 125,000 children in community-based schools, feeding their hopes for a quality education and, with it, endless opportunity to shape Afghanistan’s future. 

STORY 5

Jane* fled South Sudan for Uganda with her three sisters last year. Armed forces threatened her family and Jane’s parents sent their children away knowing their lives were in danger. It took them five days to reach Uganda’s Imvepi refugee settlement. A few days later, Jane, 17, found out her parents had been killed.

 “I miss my parents but I’m glad we left the people with the guns behind,” she says.

At Imvepi, however, she still is not safe. Her family was connected to government forces in South Sudan, which poses a threat to her and her sisters’ lives. Shortly after their arrival at Imvepi, Jane and her sisters were attacked in the middle of the night in the refugee settlement by a group of about 15 men.

“They shouted that they wanted to kill us and that this would be the last time for us to see the light,” Jane says. “And then they touched us… .”

It was the third time they’d been attacked since arriving. They received little empathy when they told others in the camp about the incident.

“They told us we should have just let them kill us,” she says.

South Sudan declared independence in 2011. Seven years later, the country is ravaged by fighting, severe hunger, mass displacement, and accusations of war crimes by government and opposition forces. Nearly 4 million people have been forced to flee because of the conflict.

Imvepi currently hosts more than 100,000 refugees, almost three times the number of locals in the area. Of the 1.3 million refugees in Uganda, over 1 million are South Sudanese and over 85% are women and children in real danger of sexual and physical violence, with many reporting incidents of violence on their brutal journey.

Upon arrival in the refugee settlements in Uganda, underage children are immediately located and matched with a foster family within two to three days. But many of them decide to leave and fall back under the risk of sexual and gender-based violence. Too often they end up trading sex for money – earning as little as 2,000 Ugandan Shillings (1 USD) per exchange. CARE holds awareness-raising sessions on sexual and reproductive health with unaccompanied minors to highlight the risks and prevent threats of sexual violence.

“We cannot provide survivors of sexual and gender-based violence with support to heal from their trauma, but at the same time be unable to meet their basic needs, forcing them into selling their bodies for survival,” says Delphine Pinault, CARE Uganda’s Country Director.

Jane’s life has changed dramatically since leaving home. As the eldest, she has to take care of her younger sisters. Food usually runs out before they receive their next ration. Every day, she wakes up to pray, prepares breakfast for her sisters and goes to Imvepi’s reception center to help out other refugees fleeing South Sudan. She has not gone back to school. Her trauma and fear of being attacked on the way to school is too great.
Eventually, she wants to become an accountant or teacher and move closer to a city to feel safer.

CARE has built a shelter for Jane and her sisters close to the settlement’s police station to help protect her from further attacks. The shelter and the girls’ caretaker, Albert, help Jane and her sisters feel safer. It gives her hope for a better life.

“Only if peace in South Sudan lasts for more than 10 years, I would trust my country to be safe enough to move back,” Jane says.

*name has been changed

 STORY 6

in the Midst of the World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis, One Girl Dreams of School

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At 7a.m., the bell rings at the school next to Maryam’s house. Maryam, 16, and her sisters wake up, quickly put on some clothes and rush out the door. Outside, girls with books in hand hurry toward the school. Maryam and her sisters wave at their friends and then walk in the opposite direction. Instead of school, every day the sisters walk an hour each way to a local water point to collect water for their family.

“I see the students going to school every morning, but I cannot go,” Maryam says. “I wanted to spend as much time as possible in school.”

On her walks she dreams about one day becoming a teacher. But in Yemen, where Maryam and her family live and where 8 million people are on the brink of famine, girls are dropping out of school to support their families.

"I carry one of the jerry cans on my head and the other one I hold with my hands,” she says. Once home, she helps her mother in the kitchen, cooking and preparing the dough for her mother to make bread.

“I would love to see my kids go to school but I am barely able to find them food to eat,” says Maryam’s mother Saadah. The 40-year-old is the mother of two boys and five girls. "Schools needs books, stationary, clothes. How can I afford this?”

Saadah’s husband died 10 years ago in a car accident with her brother.

"He told me he will come back. He did, but in a white coffin,” she says. "This is my destiny. He went away and put a heavy burden on my shoulders. I would love for my kids to go to school and give them better chances in life. But the hardships of life after my husband died and the conflict-related challenges make it even more difficult for me to even think about it.”

Maryam is among millions of Yemeni children out of school as a result of violence and difficult living conditions. Yemen faces the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with 22 million people in need of assistance. In such areas that are hobbled by war and conflict, girls are vulnerable to forced marriage, as their families seek to save them by marrying them early to a husband who they believe can better protect them. Most girls who marry early invariably miss out on school, vocational training and, consequently, the opportunity to live into all that they can be. More than two-thirds of Yemeni girls are married off before they turn 18, compared with 50 percent before the war, according to UNICEF.

Right now, Maryam is keeping her sights set on school. “I wish that one day I'll join my friends and be able to write my name. Writing my name is the biggest dream I have.”