The discussion, led by assistant history professor Ziad Abu-Rish, was part of the Women’s Center’s Brown Bag Lunch series.
As Baker Center buzzed with the lunchtime rush on Thursday afternoon, a few dozen students gathered in the Women’s Center, lunches in hand, to discuss the issues facing Syrian refugee women.
The conversation, entitled “Challenges for Women Syrian Refugees” was a part of the Women’s Center’s Brown Bag Lunch series, and was hosted by Ziad Abu-Rish, an assistant professor in the department of history.
“We are faced with one of the greatest refugee crises since World War II,” Abu-Rish told students. “The numbers of people displaced are quite devastating.”
Abu-Rish, who specializes in Middle Eastern History, recounted for the attendees a brief account of the events preceding the crisis, speaking of the uprisings against the authoritarian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, the Arab Spring, and the conflict that escalated into a civil war that has since divided the nation.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, approximately 9 million Syrians have been displaced since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. While more than 3 million have fled to the country’s immediate neighbors — primarily Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq — 6.5 million have been displaced internally within Syria, and nearly 150,000 have declared asylum within the European Union.
Of those who have been displaced, Abu-Rish explained, a majority have been women and children.
“Women refugees are finding themselves in a specifically new situation,” Abu-Rish said, adding that many female refugees have taken on the role of both mothers and breadwinners.
Abu-Rish described the growing industry of “survival sex,” in which women have been exchanging their bodies for goods and money needed to support themselves and their families. The increased threat of sexual violence, Abu-Rish explained, has made more and more women susceptible to feelings of isolation and anxiety.
“It’s a double-edged sword … we want to be attentive to the dynamics, but we don’t want to fall into the trap and say that women are worth more than men.” Abu-Rish said. “This is a really horrendous set of issues that are tearing Syrian society apart.”
About 26 students were in attendance at the talk.
“It can feel like we’re very far removed from things that are happening across the world, and that it might not affect us in the bubble that is OU,” Nicole Riker, a junior studying history pre-law said. “But the fact of the matter is that it affects everyone.”
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Mara Diaz, a sophomore studying communication studies and Spanish and a former Post photographer, believes that conversations such as this should be happening more often on campus, especially within the classroom.
“I definitely feel like I learned a lot… it’s just a lot of things that I didn’t even think to think would be a problem.” Diaz said. “You think that danger’s going to be a problem, you think that health care’s going to be a problem - but you don’t even think about switching gender roles … you don’t even think about essentially becoming the man of the household.”
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