LONDON: Men delivering humanitarian assistance for the UN and other international charities are trading aid for sexual favors from women in Syria.
According to an explosive BBC report, warnings about sexual exploitation were issued at least three years ago. One aid worker claimed the aid sector has known about the problem for much longer.
Danielle Spencer, a charity adviser, told the BBC: “Sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls has been ignored. It has been known about and ignored for seven years.
“The UN and the system as it currently stands have chosen for women’s bodies to be sacrificed.”
Spencer said she first heard the allegations in March 2015 from a group of Syrian women living in a refugee camp in Jordan. They told her men from local councils in areas including Quneitra and Daraa had demanded sex in exchange for aid.
“They were withholding aid that had been delivered and then using these women for sex,” Spencer told the BBC. “Some had experienced it themselves, some were distraught.
“I remember one woman crying in the room and she was very upset about what she had experienced. Women and girls need to be protected when they are trying to receive food and soap and basic items to live. The last thing you need is a man who you’re supposed to trust and supposed to be receiving aid from then asking you to have sex with him and withholding aid from you.”
The alleged perpetrators are said to be “third parties” employed on the ground and local officials. Their cooperation is needed to get aid into dangerous parts of Syria, meaning some aid agencies are prepared to turn a blind eye to corruption and even criminality.
Despite warnings, the practice is now so widespread in southern Syria that some women refuse to enter distribution centers out of fear that people will assume they are offering sex in exchange for aid provisions.
“(The problem) was so endemic that they couldn’t actually go without being stigmatized,” said Spencer. “It was assumed that if you went to these distributions, you will have performed some kind of sexual act in return for aid.”
“Voices from Syria 2018,” a study carried out by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) last year, found the practice was common in various provinces of Syria.
Women or girls would marry officials for a short time in order to receive food in exchange for “sexual services.” Aid distributors would ask for telephone numbers of women and girls and offer them lifts to their homes “to take something in return,” such as a visit to spend the night in exchange for aid parcels.
Lone women, including widows and displaced persons, are “particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation,” said the UNFPA report.
In June 2015, a survey of 190 women and girls by the International Rescue Committee in Daraa and Quneitra found around 40 percent claimed sexual violence had taken place when accessing services, including humanitarian aid.
Both reports were presented at a meeting of UN agencies and international charities hosted by the UNFPA in Amman, Jordan, the following month. As a result, some aid agencies tightened up their procedures.
One charity, Care, stopped using local councils to distribute aid and set up a complaints mechanism, but was refused permission to carry out studies in refugee camps in Jordan.
The UNFPA said it had heard of possible cases of exploitation and abuse of women in southern Syria from Care, but stressed it does not work with local councils as distribution partners. There were no allegations of abuse concerning the two NGOs it works within southern Syria.
The UN’s children’s charity UNICEF was one of the organizations at the July 2015 meeting in the region. It carried out a review of its local parties and contractors in southern Syria and introduced better training. No accusations have come to light so far.
A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said the allegations were known in 2015, but there was not enough information to identify and take action against individuals. The organization has now commissioned new research.
Syrian women ‘exploited for sex by aid delivery workers’
Syrian women ‘exploited for sex by aid delivery workers’
Syrian army pushes into Aleppo district after Kurdish groups reject withdrawal
- Two Syrian security officials told Reuters the ceasefire efforts had failed and that the army would seize the neighborhood by force
ALEPPO, Syria: The Syrian army said it would push into the last Kurdish-held district of Aleppo city on Friday after Kurdish groups there rejected a government demand for their fighters to withdraw under a ceasefire deal.
The violence in Aleppo has brought into focus one of the main faultlines in Syria as the country tries to rebuild after a devastating war, with Kurdish forces resisting efforts by President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s Islamist-led government to bring their fighters under centralized authority.
At least nine civilians have been killed and more than 140,000 have fled their homes in Aleppo, where Kurdish forces are trying to cling on to several neighborhoods they have run since the early days of the war, which began in 2011.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Standoff pits government against Kurdish forces
• Sharaa says Kurds are ‘fundamental’ part of Syria
• More than 140,000 have fled homes due to unrest
• Turkish, Syrian foreign ministers discuss Aleppo by phone
ِA ceasefire was announced by the defense ministry overnight, demanding the withdrawal of Kurdish forces to the Kurdish-held northeast. That would effectively end Kurdish control over the pockets of Aleppo that Kurdish forces have held.
CEASEFIRE ‘FAILED,’ SECURITY OFFICIALS SAY
But in a statement, Kurdish councils that run Aleppo’s Sheikh Maksoud and Ashrafiyah districts said calls to leave were “a call to surrender” and that Kurdish forces would instead “defend their neighborhoods,” accusing government forces of intensive shelling.
Hours later, the Syrian army said that the deadline for Kurdish fighters to withdraw had expired, and that it would begin a military operation to clear the last Kurdish-held neighborhood of Sheikh Maksoud.
Two Syrian security officials told Reuters the ceasefire efforts had failed and that the army would seize the neighborhood by force.
The Syrian defense ministry had earlier carried out strikes on parts of Sheikh Maksoud that it said were being used by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to launch attacks on the “people of Aleppo.” It said on Friday that SDF strikes had killed three army soldiers.
Kurdish security forces in Aleppo said some of the strikes hit a hospital, calling it a war crime. The defense ministry disputed that, saying the structure was a large arms depot and that it had been destroyed in the resumption of strikes on Friday.
It posted an aerial video that it said showed the location after the strikes, and said secondary explosions were visible, proving it was a weapons cache.
Reuters could not immediately verify the claim.
The SDF is a powerful Kurdish-led security force that controls northeastern Syria. It says it withdrew its fighters from Aleppo last year, leaving Kurdish neighborhoods in the hands of the Kurdish Asayish police.
Under an agreement with Damascus last March the SDF was due to integrate with the defense ministry by the end of 2025, but there has been little progress.
FRANCE, US SEEK DE-ESCALATION
France’s foreign ministry said it was working with the United States to de-escalate.
A ministry statement said President Emmanuel Macron had urged Sharaa on Thursday “to exercise restraint and reiterated France’s commitment to a united Syria where all segments of Syrian society are represented and protected.”
A Western diplomat told Reuters that mediation efforts were focused on calming the situation and producing a deal that would see Kurdish forces leave Aleppo and provide security guarantees for Kurds who remained.
The diplomat said US envoy Tom Barrack was en route to Damascus. A spokesperson for Barrack declined to comment. Washington has been closely involved in efforts to promote integration between the SDF — which has long enjoyed US military support — and Damascus, with which the United States has developed close ties under President Donald Trump.
The ceasefire declared by the government overnight said Kurdish forces should withdraw by 9 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Friday, but no one withdrew overnight, Syrian security sources said.
Barrack had welcomed what he called a “temporary ceasefire” and said Washington was working intensively to extend it beyond the 9 a.m. deadline. “We are hopeful this weekend will bring a more enduring calm and deeper dialogue,” he wrote on X.
TURKISH WARNING
Turkiye views the SDF as a terrorist organization linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party and has warned of military action if it does not honor the integration agreement.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking on Thursday, expressed hope that the situation in Aleppo would be normalized “through the withdrawal of SDF elements.”
Though Sharaa, a former Al-Qaeda commander who belongs to the Sunni Muslim majority, has repeatedly vowed to protect minorities, bouts of violence in which government-aligned fighters have killed hundreds of Alawites and Druze have spread alarm in minority communities over the last year.
The Kurdish councils in Aleppo said Damascus could not be trusted “with our security and our neighborhoods,” and that attacks on the areas aimed to bring about displacement.
Sharaa, in a phone call with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani on Friday, affirmed that the Kurds were “a fundamental part of the Syrian national fabric,” the Syrian presidency said.
Neither the government nor the Kurdish forces have announced a toll of casualties among their fighters from the recent clashes.
