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’
How the Palestinian Circus sustains hope and resistance under Israeli occupation
- Under mounting Israeli raids and restrictions, a West Bank circus troupe turns art into political expression
- For displaced and traumatized Palestinian youth, joy, balance and teamwork help build mental resilience
DUBAI: On any given morning in the village of Birzeit, just 10 kilometers north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, the sound of juggling balls hitting the floor mixes with laughter, music, and the occasional gasp.
Inside a modest rehearsal space, young performers rehearse feats of balance and acrobatics at the Palestinian Circus, which has become a small outlet for resistance and joy among young people across the occupied West Bank.
However, the circus is under more pressure than ever. Mohamad Rabah, its executive director, told Arab News that Israeli raids had seen one of their colleagues detained and the troupe’s activities become more difficult to sustain.
“The military forces were in Birzeit one month ago. They were here in front of our building. But we are not a special case,” Rabah said.
“We are the same as any Palestinian suffering from this occupation, and we try to find ways to resist, to stay resilient and to find creative ways to work.”
Founded in 2006 in the aftermath of the Second Intifada, the Palestinian Circus was born from an urgency to reestablish hope and provide creative outlets for young Palestinians.
The circus offers children and young adults the chance to train in a range of arts and take part in professional productions around the world.
Given the physical demands and collective discipline required, Rabah says circus skills have become a language through which children and young people can express fear, anger, hope and resistance.
The group’s first production, launched amid intense Israeli restrictions, was bluntly political.
“The first show was called Circus Behind the Wall, and it was using circus disciplines to connect with acts like juggling over the wall,” Rabah said.
“The wall, built by Israel around major Palestinian cities, had cut families, friends and livelihoods apart. The circus answered symbolically.”
The show toured locally and internationally for several years. By 2008, those early performers had become teachers.
“The same young people who gained the skill at that time as circus performers started to teach other youth and kids,” Rabah said.
Since those early days, its programs have expanded into refugee camps in Hebron, Nablus, Jenin, Farah, Ramallah, and Jerusalem — areas where trauma was not abstract but a daily reality.
Nearly two decades later, the organization has grown into a prominent cultural institution. This year alone, Rabah said, the circus completed 90 performances — 55 in Palestine and 35 abroad.
It has appeared at festivals in France, Italy, Ireland and Belgium and even at the UK’s Glastonbury.
The occupied West Bank faces its gravest crisis in years, with escalating Israeli military raids, record settler attacks and accelerating displacement.
Raids in areas like Jenin and Nablus have killed hundreds and damaged vital infrastructure, while settler violence and demolitions have pushed many rural and herding communities off their land.
Settlement expansion continues, aimed at entrenching permanent control and foreclosing Palestinian statehood.
The Palestinian Authority is weakened by fiscal collapse, sanctions and loss of legitimacy, undermining services and governance, while humanitarian agencies warn of worsening protection risks and de facto forcible transfer.
Some Palestinian Circus productions confront politics head on, like “Sarah,” created in 2017, which tells the story of displacement. “It’s a performance … about the journey and the suffering of refugees,” Rabah said.
“We also have happy and uplifting performances … like Wonderland, which is like a children and family show inspired by the Alice in Wonderland theme.”
In a society saturated with loss, Rabah says joy itself becomes an act of resistance. However, performance is only one part of the work. The larger mission lies in training and psychosocial support.
“This year, we worked with 4,000 children, women and people with disabilities — 2,000 in Gaza and 2,000 in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” Rabah said.
“There are 16 disciplines in circus, so we use the term ‘circus for all,’ and with circus for all that’s inclusivity. Everyone can find their space under the circus.”
Unlike theater, Rabah says there are no singular stars in circus, which makes the whole endeavor a lesson in team building, with young people learning to rely on each other for balance during daring acrobatics.
That reliance has become more urgent as violence has escalated across the West Bank and Gaza. With mobility increasingly restricted, Rabah says freedom has been incrementally squeezed out of Palestinian life, especially for young people.
Relying on each other’s support is the only way to survive.
“From one city to another… it requires a lot of work to meet another young person,” Rabah said. “What the Israeli occupation is trying to do is to take from us every meaning of living.”
Still, the show goes on. This year, despite visa obstacles and excessive costs, the circus managed to send more than 40 children abroad for cultural exchanges — an achievement that Rabah admits came at a high price.
“This year alone, we spent more than half a million shekels ($157,350) … on flight tickets,” he said. “Looking at the demand, you wish to do more. It’s a drop in the ocean.”
In Gaza, the stakes are even higher. Rabah visited the enclave in 2022 to meet with circus artists, many of whom continued training amid the devastation wrought by the conflict that began in October 2023.
“They are inspiring,” he said. “They worked during the genocide with nothing, starving. Their schools were destroyed, but they continued to perform and to train. There are, I think, four to five artists who were lost, killed by the Israeli bombing.”
Rabah himself joined the organization in 2018, after the founding artists moved to Europe. He was not a performer but could see the social impact that the project could have. He said art was essential in a society where political participation is constrained.
“I didn’t have any circus background. My background is community and youth work and management,” he said.
“There are limited ways in which young people can express their voice … so art becomes not only a way of entertainment… it’s a way that you participate in the community.”
The circus does not impose any narrative, with most of the shows being produced by the performers themselves without a given script. “Most of our shows, the ideas come from the artists,” Rabah said. “They do it with their bodies and their circus tricks.”
As the organization approaches its 20th anniversary, it plans to expand with a mobile circus tent, bringing performances to the most isolated communities. This is something Rabah says will require further sponsorship, which he hopes will continue regardless of the political situation.
“Put yourself in the shoes of a 15-year-old Palestinian living in a refugee camp in Gaza … it’s a struggle for identity and existence,” he said.
“We need every bit of support to allow us to exist and keep existing with our identity and culture and every meaning of life.”
