3-year study explores plight of refugee women in region

AMMAN — Microbusinesses do little to address the political marginalisation faced by Arab refugee women, according to the findings of a regional study.

The study, conducted between 2016 and 2018 with the participation of the King Hussein Foundation’s Information and Research Centre (IRCKHF), found that while microenterprises did little to address refugee women’s political marginalisation, they did help to marginally alleviate poverty, and enhance independence, self-confidence, resourcefulness, endurance, strategic planning and negotiation skills. 

Many of the women then used these skills to catalyse change for their children, families and themselves, the study found.

To this extent, poverty alleviation cannot be measured by financial gains only, a statement sent to The Jordan Times said.

Women and children are subject to the worst effects of displacement and refugee movements given their limited power and resources to counteract the ensuing violence and poverty. As a strategy to address the matrix of disadvantages arising from displacement, supporting women’s microenterprises has become a focal point of contemporary policy interest, according to the statement.

The regional project, entitled “Resilient Refugee Women”, aimed to gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the experiences of Arab refugee women displaced from Iraq, Palestine and Syria to Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and how they alleviate poverty for themselves, their families and communities through entrepreneurship, the statement said.

Mixed methods were used to collect data from stakeholders and refugee women in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. In addition to focus group discussions, in depth interviews were conducted with refugee women and follow-up surveys were carried out with the same women the following year.

The combined qualitative and quantitative material and data generated from the refugee women, as well as the stakeholders culminated in a triangulated analysis of women’s empowerment, micro entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation in each of the three research locations, the statement said.

Without exception, all 125 enterprises within the study sample operated within typically feminised sectors such as baking, catering and food production, traditional crafts, tailoring, embroidery, cosmetics and hairdressing. Despite this, 57.8 per cent of all participants believed they did not have the right to register their businesses because they were refugees.

With regards to experiences of crime and violence within 2017-2018, 28.6 per cent of participants had experienced emotional abuse, 25.2 per cent verbal abuse, 8.4 per cent sexual harassment, 6.5 per cent physical violence and 1.7 per cent sexual abuse. Husbands and family members were often the perpetrators of the abuse and harassment, according to the study.

“The evidence showed that gender-based violence rehabilitation services should be incorporated within entrepreneurial opportunities and training offered to Arab refugee women in order to make the services easier to access, especially in Jordan where the most verbal and psychological abuse was reported in comparison to Lebanon and Turkey,” Aida Essaid, the director of the IRCKHF said.

The project was done in collaboration with Plymouth University, Nottingham University, UDA Consulting and Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, and was funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and the Department International Development’s poverty alleviation programme.