Read extracts of my recent fielwork interviews here - ‘Listen to the Women’, Ahead Of UN Refugee Summit

Here you can read extracts of interviews I did on my recent #fieldwork trip to #Serbia with CARE International UK. We were interviewing #mothers with small #children about the dangers they face fleeing #ISIS controlled #Syria and #Iraq to Europe. 

By Sarah Cope (Women’s Spokesperson for The Green Party)

“We walked 10 days through Macedonia. We had very little food or water because we’d left in a hurry. What we had we shared with each other. We tried to give the children more. Going over the mountains was really hard. Our feet blistered and bled. Each step was agony. Our children were crying with hunger and cold. It rained and kept raining. We drank the rain water off the leaves...Many of us fell down in the mountains. We were covered in scratches, our feet were cut up and I have a huge bruise on my leg from a fall. I had to carry my children. They were terrified. I was scared for them but also because I could feel my scar from the caesarean ripping. It was so

painful.”

The words of Nadia. a Yazidi from Iraq.She fled her country whilst pregnant and accompanied by her young sons, having witnessed extremists commit unbelievable atrocities. When she reached Athens she was given a Caesarian, but her baby was dead. He was taken away and buried in a mass grave.

On 19 and 20 September world leaders will gather at the UN for two major summits on the global refugee and migration crisis - a UN General Assembly plenary co- chaired by Jordan and Ireland, and a Summit on the Global Refugee Crisis convened by President Obama.

Ahead of the event, Women for Refugee Women and Care International UK are holding a ‘Listen to the Women’ event, to help ensure that the UK government plays a positive part in these summits.

Tomorrow (13th September), activists will be joined by cross-party MPs to hear testimonies of women like Nadia, read by actors including Juliet Stephenson and Anne-Marie Duff.

The message will be clear: women face specific challenges in the global refugee crisis.

Women who cross borders to seek safety share the same challenges that men do, but they may also have specific vulnerabilities. These include sexual and gender-based violence. It is a fact that many refugee women are fleeing sexualised or gender-based violence, including rape as persecution, forced marriage, forced prostitution. In addition, many of them experience sexual violence at the hands of traffickers or others during their journeys.

Women and girls who are migrating also face high risks to reproductive health. There is often no suitable provision for pregnant women and new mothers in refugee camps and border crossings.

And women who are caring for young children while they are displaced face an emotional and physical toll that is often unrecognised. As well as trying to keep going themselves, they are trying to protect their children from the worst effects of what they are going through.

The UK can and should do more to ensure that women are safe. At the moment, we are taking in many fewer refugees than other European countries. Without becoming overwhelmed, the UK could do more to contribute to humane solutions for at least more of the women and children caught up in refugee crisis.

The UK government could also do more to support the needs of refugee women in developing countries where most refugees are living. This should include increased funding to women-led organisations and ensuring that humanitarian aid is linked to commitments on meeting women’s needs.

In addition, our government needs to work with other governments to ensure that there are safe, legal routes to settlement for vulnerable refugee women. A focus on deterrence ignores the root causes of displacement and puts women and girls at greater risk.

And finally, in the UK women who have crossed borders to seek safety should be given dignity and a chance to rebuild their lives. This includes timely and fair decisions on asylum applications; an end to detention in the notorious Yarl’s Wood detention centre (described last year by HM Inspectorate of Prisons as ‘a place of national concern’); and an end to destitution and homelessness as women pass through the asylum process.

Nadia and her sons are now in Serbia. She is trying to make it to Germany to be reunited with her husband and daughter. She says, “We are trying to stay strong and support one another. But we’re praying for a miracle.”

Follow Sarah Cope on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GreenSarahCope

Want to help? Sign the petition here: http://action.careinternational.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.campaign.id=53447&ea.client.id=93

#conflict #war # refugees #persecution #refugeeswelcome #CARE4refugees #fieldwork #ISIS #mothers #children #Syria #Iraq #Europe #Serbia

These women's stories will remind you why you need to keep caring about the refugee crisis 2

As the refugee crisis continues and millions of people are still forced to flee their homes in search of safety, these women are sharing their stories to raise awareness of why you need to keep caring. 

Here you can read interviews I did on my recent #fieldwork trip to #Serbia with CARE International UK. We were interviewing #mothers with small #children about the dangers they face fleeing #ISIS controlled #Syria and #Iraq to Europe.

(Image of Dana and her son. Credit: Emma Saville) 

'MY CHILDREN HAVE NEVER PLAYED IN A PARK OR SEEN A GARDEN - THEY ONLY KNOW WAR': Dana, 37, from Syria

'In Syria, you might die one day from a bomb, but on this journey you can die every single day. People ask me if I regret making this journey, and the answer is yes. If I could send a message home to people trying to flee Syria, I would tell them not to do it.

I’m trying to reach my daughter, Basma, who is currently in Austria with my sister. Two years ago we sent her away to Germany to keep her safe. Men and women from different groups kept approaching her, telling her to join them and to fight. She was only seven years old, and she was seeing such horrifying things. Walking down the street one day we came across dead women’s bodies dumped at the side of the road. Some were decapitated, some had their hands or legs cut off. They had long hair like we did.

I was so terrified for her safety that I asked my sister to take her to Germany. I hoped that when things got better, she would be able to come back and we could return to how we were living before. But things didn’t get better, they only got worse.

Before the war, I was so happy. I lived in a beautiful home with my husband and two children, and we had a good life. I worked as a school teacher and my husband had a good position in the army. After the revolution began, my youngest son was born. We named him Salam, which means peace.

But after the revolution everything changed. Aeroplanes came and bombed everything. It didn’t matter what they hit, and it didn’t matter if we died. Children were forced to fight; schools were closed, and no-one felt safe anymore.

Extremists came to our area about one year after the war started. One day after that, my husband just disappeared. I've not heard any news about him since. Shortly after that, I was beaten in the marketplace because I’d lifted up my veil for a second to see a child’s toy I wanted to buy. I was so frightened, and I knew we had to leave.

All my boys have ever known is war. They haven’t had a good day, or seen a garden or played in a park. They’re just children, but they’ve only ever seen planes and airstrikes and fear and terror. And heads lying on the ground.

We left Syria in April this year in the middle of the night. If the army or other armed groups had caught us, we would have been killed. We walked for 10 hours to reach the Turkish border. I had to carry Salam, my two-year-old, all the way. His legs were too little to walk so far.

Eventually, I felt the only way I could reach Serbia was by putting our lives in the hands of smugglers. They locked us in a house for a few days without food or water, we weren’t allowed to make a sound. I’d heard that they sometimes sell children’s organs on the black market, so I stayed awake all night every night - terrified they were going to steal my sons if I didn’t pay them enough money.

Now I'm in a camp here, waiting to hear when we will be allowed to cross into Hungary. From there we will move on to Austria to join my daughter. Every night when I thank God I thank him for Germany and Austria. They have opened their doors to refugees. We didn't leave our country for the love of Germany or just to have a better life. We left because we didn’t want to die.

At the moment, nobody has told me when we'll be allowed over the border. Having to rely on smugglers was the worst and most terrifying part of this journey so far, but if I have to do it again to get to my daughter, I will. If you have a target in front of you and you’re set on it, you’re going to make it eventually. We will get there."
Read more at http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/blogs/554484/refugee-summit-2016-women-s-stories-from-syria.html#kt6Cpkr4qOYEuKlH.99

The world's first Refugee Summit is taking place on September 19th in New York. Support women like Dana and Nadia at www.careinternational.org.uk

Want to help? Sign the petition here: http://action.careinternational.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.campaign.id=53447&ea.client.id=93

#conflict #war # refugees #persecution #refugeeswelcome #CARE4refugees

These women's stories will remind you why you need to keep caring about the refugee crisis

As the refugee crisis continues and millions of people are still forced to flee their homes in search of safety, these women are sharing their stories to raise awareness of why you need to keep caring.

Here you can read interviews I did on my recent #fieldwork trip to #Serbia with CARE International UK. We were interviewing #mothers with small #children about the dangers they face fleeing #ISIS controlled #Syria and #Iraq to Europe.

 

(Image of Nadia's children. Credit: Emma Saville) 

'I NEVER GOT TO HOLD MY BABY - I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE HE'S BURIED': Nadia, 34, from Iraq

'We left Mosul in Iraq about a year ago. The conflict was just getting worse and worse. Soldiers were killing our husbands and our sons. Extremists were raping and kidnapping women and girls as young as 12-years-old, then they brainwashed them, and taught them to kill for them. Everyone knew a girl who'd been taken. My daughter Lilian was 10, and I was so afraid she would be next. I saw a car full of young Yazidi girls being burnt alive, and it was more than I could stand.

Together with my husband, daughter and two sons, we fled. I was four months pregnant, and we headed on foot through the darkness towards Syria. It was long and tiring, but when we crossed the border it felt like it was all worth it. I'd been so sure that we would be seen and killed en route - I couldn't believe we were free.

But after four months, the fighting got worse in Syria, too. We heard that the extremists weren't far away, and I was terrified all over again. After a long conversation, my husband and I decided that he should go ahead to Greece with our daughter because we were so scared of what extremists would do to her if they caught us. I knew that together they could travel much faster than I could with our young sons.

A few days after they set off, I left for Turkey on foot with some friends. At night we slept by the side of the road, watching out for each other with the children nestled in the middle for safety. They were so well behaved, and they really tried not to cry - but I knew they were so tired from walking all day. Meanwhile, I was eight months pregnant and my back hurt. Everyone helped me, but there wasn't much they could do. Every time I spoke to my husband on the phone, he said he was worried because we hardly had any food or water - he wanted the others to give me extra, but I couldn't ask them for that. We were all struggling together.

Finally, we arrived in Izmir, Turkey, and found some smugglers who were willing to take us in a dingy to Greece. We all bought life jackets because we couldn’t swim and I'd heard that so many people drown along the way. The children were so afraid they were crying - but I tried to be strong for them even though secretly, I was terrified too. I was nine months pregnant, and I was scared I'd give birth at any moment.

I've never been so happy to see dry land, but shortly after we arrived, a doctor in the camp told me my baby had died from stress and malnutrition. I was taken to a hospital and given a caesarean. Nobody even let me see him. They just took him away and buried him in a mass grave. I collapsed, and cried for days. It's been six months now, but I still can't comprehend the fact that I can't visit my son's grave. It's too much to bear.

We were taken to a camp nearby, but people heard that we were Yazidi, and one day a group of men came up to us with big knives. They said they'd cut off our arms, our legs, our faces - but when we told the people running the camp, they didn't do anything. We told the police, and they didn't help either. That's when I realised how vulnerable we still were, so we left - walking for ten days through Macedonia, over the mountains. Our feet blistered and bled as our children cried from the cold. It kept raining, and we drank the rain water off the leaves.

One night, as we sheltered under a tarpaulin in the woods, masked mafia appeared and took all our money. They threatened us with guns and knives, and stole all our phones. All our photos and contact numbers were lost in an instant, and I panicked. How would we know where to go now?

I don’t know where we got the energy from, but as soon as the mafia turned their backs, we ran. Luckily they didn’t chase us, but it was like we were tumbling down the mountainside. With my sons in my arms, I skidded down the slope - tripping and stumbling and bleeding. With every step I could feel my scar from the caesarean ripping.

It took us days to cross the border into Serbia, where we were taken to the refugee camp in Presevo, in the south of the country. We were given clean beds and clothes and a private family shelter where we could change in safety, and CARE provided us with food and hot showers. I was so tired. I felt like I'd never be able to take another step.

It's been a few weeks now. There's a playground here for the children, but they have seen so much it scares me. Their eyes haunt me. They're too young to understand how much they’ve suffered. Even as an adult I can barely comprehend it.

I'm desperate to reach Germany and be reunited with my husband and daughter, but I can't afford it. Even if I had the money, I'm so exhausted that I don’t think I have the energy to carry on. Now to make things even harder, they’ve closed the Hungarian border and are only letting 15-30 refugees through a day.

I'm trying to stay strong. But it's too much. I'm praying for a miracle.'
Read more at http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/blogs/554484/refugee-summit-2016-women-s-stories-from-syria.html#kt6Cpkr4qOYEuKlH.99

The world's first Refugee Summit is taking place on September 19th in New York. Support women like Dana and Nadia at www.careinternational.org.uk

Want to help? Sign the petition here: http://action.careinternational.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.campaign.id=53447&ea.client.id=93

#conflict #war # refugees #persecution #refugeeswelcome #CARE4refugees

Speaking out

So many women suffer in silence.

Suffer this weight, this heaviness that was placed upon us.

No you may not speak of this.

It is dirty, shameful, sinful.

We must not speak of it.

So we’re chained up in this silence.

Not daring to break free because of the fear.

Fear of being cast out, rejected, shamed.

That we are not fellow human beings worth of respect.

But objects, to be used and discarded.

These chains of silence are so heavy.

They constrict our airways and block up our throats.

Squash our voices and still our tongues.

Muting our dreams and desires.

For we must now focus our energy on getting through each day.

On surviving.

Yet we are bursting to be free of it, suffocating under this weight.

This pain that we’re told we must carry around inside of us.

That our bodies are no longer our bodies.

They have been tainted, disrespected, violated.

We are made to feel vulnerable, frightened and afraid.

Disempowered.

Perhaps before we would have spoken out.

Now we are silent.

Now we carry this shame as a lead ball within our chest.

A dark heavy greyness that fills us, weighing us down.

It may manifest itself physically as headaches, backache or cramps.

But most of all it is heavy, the thing around our neck.

This coercion and control which stoppers our voices and dampens our spirit.

Prevents us from carrying on, speaking up, moving forward.

For a while we are in limbo, unable to move on.

One step forward and two steps back.

Our past tries to drown us, drag us sideways, downwards.

Stifling our needs and desires.

To feel inside that something has broken.

Shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

Spinning off into an endless abyss.

But that yes with time, these pieces can be picked up and begun to be put back together.

And yes with time these cracks will begin to fade

And slowly this weight across our chest will ease

So it is a process, a balancing act.

A journey without a specific destination in mind

Perhaps the destination is to break the silence.

To speak out, speak up.

To face our fear.

To move further along the spectrum of victim to survivor.

Now we can begin to reclaim spaces that were taken from us.

To confront the fears we have kept hidden for so long.

Slowly we can begin to feel whole again.

And slowly the thing around our neck begins to loosen.

Vientiane Sand Art Competition 2015, Mekong River, Laos

Thirty minutes tuktuk drive back to my hostel later (it had been a long walk!), and I was happily washing the dust off my feet (they’d turned a browny sort of grey). I then had a very welcome hour-long siesta on my bed, as I was also still recovering from mild flu. When my feet were slightly less swollen, I headed out as promised to visit the sand art competition that I’d seen on my first evening. 

Clambering down the steep sand dunes to get to the competition proved interesting and I was glad I was still wearing my walking boots! My favourite by far was the enormous sand yellow elephant which dominated the designated space for the competition. It sat majestically gazing out across the Mekong, small local children clustered at its feet. As the sun sank slowly, hugging the horizon line, the elephant was bathed in a soft, warm, golden light, its lines softened.

 

Car load upon car load of locals began to appear and wind their way to a sand headline in the middle of the river bank. Watching the sunset was evidentially a popular local pastime as by the time I’d got back to the far river bank to head back to the hostel, literally hundreds of mopeds, bikes and scooters had appeared – their owners clearly with the same intention.

I later headed out to find some street food with 3 peeps I’d met at the hostel, a fellow British chica from Birmingham and a French guy and a guy from Malta. The food we eventually chose, delicious spring rolls, glass noodles, spring onions sprinkled with peanuts with a peanut sauce, was interestingly cold, but absolutely yummy. After 90 mins or so I said goodbye to them and headed back to the massage place where I’d had a very good (if slightly overly friendly – they really mean FULL body!) oil massage the night before. This time I wanted to try a foot massage but they were fully booked so I had a traditional (no oil) Thai Cambodian one instead. Man it was painful! I didn’t know that my body could twist into some of the positions she put me in! There was a lot of petrissage, alongside lots of finger and toe pulling. I felt slightly like a stretched pretzel by the time she’d finished but as parts of it were still relaxing it was all good, and I’m sure I’ll feel the benefits. I’m recovering from a ripped ligament in my left ankle so I do think that will be a bit sore, but hey ho sure I’ll be fine :)

Little House (Amanda Seyfried) - Cover by Melissa Cantello

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Wat Si Sasket, Arch de Triomphe/Patuxai, Pha That Luang - Vientiane, Laos

The main Wat Si Sasket is beautiful. A high wall surrounds it and you have to pay an entrance fee of 5,000KIP (about £4). The wat had an outer courtyard filled with golden statures of Buddhist deities and spirits, and of Buddha himself of course. The wat itself was protected by another inner walled corridor which was roofed over with dusky red brown tiles to shelter all the statues within its walls. The inner wall of the corridor had hundreds of pockets in which each sat a tiny statue, placed a regular intervals along the wall. These were guarded by large statues of spirits sitting in the lotus position and gently fragranced flowered bushes in pots.

The inner temple was protected at the rear by a long boat-like structure. At its bow, as the mast head, was a large dragon or narga, and over the stern sat a delicately carved swan. Inside the temple itself was an ENORMOUS golden bronzed Buddha which filled the far wall from floor to ceiling. You were forbidden to talk photos either inside the temple or from the door looking in as a stream of locals, monks and (mainly Asian) tourist entered the wat to pray, meditate and pay their respects. After another long slow walk around the gardens surrounding the wat, I’d drunk my fill, and so began the long hot dusty walk alongside a large dual carriageway to Laos’s answer to the Arch de Triomphe, Patuxai.

After about twenty minutes walking under the baking sun I was very tempted to get a tuktuk, but resisted the temptation as I always thing that you experience more by walking. I paid 3,000KIP (about £1.75) upon arrival to the tower to climb the four, mainly spiral, flights of stairs up to the roof which afforded excellent views of the city. After descending, I took a much needed 10 minute break sitting by the refreshing fountains to cool off. I then took a tuktuk to the incredible gold guilded, Pha That Luang, as it was another 30 minute walk from where I was, and my energy levels were beginning to flag and my feet were becoming increasingly swollen! The vista was well worth it. The entrance fee was 5,000KIP (around £4) and was so worth it. I was basically the only western tourist there, the majority were Asian tourists who were obviously also Buddhists and had come to pay their respects. The sun glinted deliciously off the bright gold of the temple roofs and made an idealistic picture against the bright baby blue of the sky and the lush green of the grass.