Fleeing advancing IS fighters, Kamal Faris and his family found refuge in a school turned into refugee camp in Erbil, September 2014. Credit: Annabell Van den Berghe/IPS

By Annabell Van den Berghe
ERBIL, Iraq, Oct 7 2014 (IPS)

“We had ten minutes to leave our hometown,” says 33-year-old Kamal Faris who, together with his entire family, was forced to flee the threat of Islamic State (IS) fighters approaching his village.

The IS advance in this region, the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, has swelled the number of refugees. Overall, they are now estimated at more than 1.8 million people.

A small minority has found a temporary home with relatives living in other, safer cities, but for most of the refugees, this was not an option and entire families became refugees overnight. Faris’ family is one of them.“Three weeks ago, schools had been due to open start the new school year but the at least 700 schools in the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq that have been turned into refugee camps were unable to open their doors again for classes”

School turned into refugee camp in Erbil, September 2014. Credit: Annabell Van den Berghe/IPS

After what he says was the worst journey in his life, 33-year-old Kamal Faris arrived in Erbil with his wife, children, mother and his blind brother. “There were ten of us. We all had to fit into a tiny Opel, and drive away as fast as we could. We left everything behind, all our belongings,” he says, pointing at his feet, showing that he only brought the sandals that he was wearing.

“The children were sitting in the car with three on each other’s lap, their faces pale with fear. Inside me, everything was cracking from the pain of seeing them like that.”

Under normal circumstances, the drive from Sareshka, hometown of the Faris family, to Erbil takes three hours. But, recalls Faris, “we had to sit in a broiling car for over five hours, everybody was fleeing the city. Roads were packed and our car couldn’t reach its usual speed because we were too many.”

School turned into refugee camp in Erbil, September 2014. Credit: Annabell Van den Berghe/IPS

“With every rough spot in the road,” he continues, “we could hear the chassis of the car scrape on the asphalt. Nobody dared to move, out of fear that the car would break down under our weight.”

When they arrived, it was in the middle of the summer holidays and schools that had earlier been full of children were now makeshift homes for refugees like Faris.

At the Ishtar Elementary School, where Faris is taking shelter with his family, he and other refugees had hoped that this would only be a temporary solution and that they would soon be able to return to their homes. “I thought it would only be temporary,” says Wazira, Faris’ wife. “Two, three days maybe. Not more.”

Faris and his family have now been here for more than a month, together with dozens of other families, packed into the narrow classrooms of the school in the centre of Erbil.

Three weeks ago, schools had been due to open start the new school year but the at least 700 schools in the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq that have been turned into refugee camps were unable to open their doors again for classes. Having believed, like many refugees, that the situation would not last, the Iraqi government has not been able to find an alternative solution.

The upshot is that there are now more than half a million children who are not going to school as planned this year.

“Despite the efforts of the Iraqi authorities, the children who are currently living in these classrooms, as well as the children who are supposed to come here to follow classes, have no access to education,” said Save the Children’s director in Iraq, Tina Yu. She is concerned that it could take weeks or even months to solve the problem.

The United Nations has released a statement requesting its humanitarian agencies to do all that they can to help the government find proper accommodation for the refugee families, hopefully before winter sets in.

But, for the refugees, staying until the winter is far too long. “We just want to go home. As soon as possible,” says Wazira.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

An empty polling station in Garden City, Cairo. Credit: Amanda Mustard

By Annabell Van den Berghe
CAIRO, May 29 2014 (IPS)

With a result already known before the race started, many did not even bother heading to the polling stations and the streets in Cairo were unusually empty during the election process that ended Wednesday, just like the ballot boxes.

Egyptians had been called on to vote for their second president in two years, but the low turnout threatened to undermine the credibility of the popular candidate. former army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who wanted to show the world once and for all that the overthrow of the first freely-elected president, Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, was not a coup by the military but a revolution backed by the Egyptian people.

Sisi himself had aimed for an 80 percent turnout but, after two days, this turnout seemed unachievable. Observers estimated that 20 percent of the electorate had cast votes over two days, while organisers of the campaign of Hamdeen Sabbahi, Sisi’s only opponent, said they had logged a turnout of no more than 15 percent turnout.

In a first attempt to boost these numbers, Egyptian authorities extended the voting on Tuesday by an extra hour. And shortly after that, another effort was made by granting an extension of an extra day on Wednesday.“Real change lies in the hands of the youth. We are the ones fighting for a better Egypt, but we need time. When we reach the age to rule the country, we will do it differently” – 23-year-old law student

The Presidential Election Commission defended this decision stating that it was a response to calls by citizens who were struck by the heat wave in Egypt and therefore could not go to vote. But this latter attempt was seen by many as a fraud.

“This was ridiculous,” said Omar Amin, a 28-year-old architect. “We all knew it is not about who would win these elections, but how many votes there would be. It made no sense to extend the voting by another day, just to reach the numbers they had in mind.” Amin is one of many young people who decided to stay at home instead of casting a ballot.

But the concerns about turnout were already clear long before the heat wave arrived on Tuesday. After the authorities declared the second day of voting a national holiday and several other measures were taken to improve the turnout, the worry was crystal clear. Major shopping centres had to close their doors hours before normal closing time to make sure Egyptians would not use their newly announced holiday for shopping instead of doing their duty as citizens.

Egypt’s highest Islamic state-run authority Al-Azhar preached that failure to vote was “disobeying the nation.” And the head of the Coptic church in Egypt, Pope Tawadros, gave a speech exhorting voters to head to the polls

“It is such a paradox to use religion and religious authorities to move people to voting,” a women in her thirties who did not want to give her name, told IPS. “Those who are fighting the Muslim Brotherhood by calling them terrorists because they used religion as an instrument to gain popularity, are now doing exactly the same thing.”

But not only the churches and mosques tried to convince Egyptians to vote. State television as well as national radio scolded the public for not showing up at the polls. A TV anchor said that those who were not voting “should be shot”, or “at least should shoot themselves.”

But not everybody was convinced by the propaganda of local media loyal to both the interim government and frontrunner Sisi. “I am not voting. Even if I were in Alexandria where I should be voting, I wouldn’t make the effort. I’d rather shoot myself,” Marc Dimitri joked during the elections, referring to the controversial quote of the TV anchor.

Dimitri is a 23-year-old law student from Alexandria, residing in Cairo. He doesn’t believe Egypt’s future lies in the hands of the current politicians. “Whoever will be our president, now or in the coming years, will not be able to make a change,” he believes. “Real change lies in the hands of the youth. We are the ones fighting for a better Egypt, but we need time. When we reach the age to rule the country, we will do it differently.”

Ahmed Mohamed Seif, a 24-year-old colleague of Dimitri agreed. “We have an incredibly strong judiciary system, based on the French system. The problem in Egypt isn’t the skeleton of institutions, it’s the executive part. Egypt is corrupt. That’s what needs to be changed, and only a new generation can do this.”

Young Egyptians seemed to stay far away from the polls. The women lining up at the “females only” polling station in the Garden City district of Cairo were all in their early forties or older. They believed their vote would make a difference. “Sisi will win the elections! Our hero, I love him,” chemistry professor Malak Mehdi shouted. “He understands the Egyptian people, he knows our needs. Sabbahi is nobody, Sisi will assure the stability of Egypt,” she added.

While the female crowd was chanting for Sisi, patriotic songs blared from loudspeakers just outside the polling station. Maya Husein, a 52-year-old woman next in line, chimed in: “Sisi is a strong man with a strong hand, this is what Egypt needs. He freed us from terrorism and will continue protecting us.”

Sisi’s propaganda machine seemed to have worked. The adulation of Sisi over recent months pushed many to vote for him, mostly women who adore him and see him as the saviour of the nation.

But a couple of blocks away, at a local coffee shop, some friends gathered for tea instead of casting votes. Like Dimitri and Seif, they questioned the capability of Sisi to rule their country. “His (Sisi’s) campaign was totally focussed on the war on terror, he didn’t talk about the future. But what is next? What will he do after all Islamists are jailed or killed?” wondered 31-year-old Nader Abdelrahmen.

“A year ago we were told that someone would be held accountable for the hundreds of deaths during the dispersal (of a pro-Morsi sit in at Rabaa in August 2013, ed.). Today we see all Muslim Brotherhood leaders and its members arrested or even sentenced to death – nobody talks about the massacres anymore. And we are the next to come: they have already started threatening us. Is this justice? Is this how he will rule over Egypt?” complains Ammar Abubakr, a prominent 33-year-old graffiti artist and activist.

“I am not boycotting because I agree with the Muslim Brotherhood. I am boycotting because I am against the failure of this system. At this point, there is no suitable option for this generation,” he continued.

Although the Brotherhood called for a boycott of these elections, and most of its supporters stayed away from the ballot boxes, there are apparently many other reasons why the turnout was beneath all expectations – and the extension of the voting did not substantially affect the final results.

Number one in this race for president is he who stayed at home. Sisi ended up right behind, with 90% of the votes out of the roughly 40 percent turnout, which makes him the new leader of Egypt – despite the heat.

Basma co-founder Nihal Saad Zaghloul in the Cairo metro, where she held the first awareness campaigns. Credit: Courtesy of Magali Corouge/Documentography

By Annabell Van den Berghe
CAIRO, Nov 14 2013 (IPS)

Nihal Saad Zaghloul is an Egyptian woman in her late twenties. Like other young women, she faces the daily risk of sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo. But Egypt’s revolution made her realise that people can unite and that she can make a difference.

A trend of mob rapes has risen rapidly in Egypt as political stability and social security have diminished post-revolution. Together with a friend she founded an organisation called Basma to raise awareness about sexual harassment in the streets of this metropolis of 30 million.

After gathering dozens of volunteers, they deployed on the streets around Tahrir Square and inside the downtown metro stations last year for the first time. Zaghloul deeply believes that everything starts with education – and she set out to educate.

“Our educational system is failing. Government schools perform poorly and private schools are too expensive. This keeps most of the Egyptian youth uneducated. And it is exactly this group that we find in the streets, bored with life, mistreating women.” Zaghloul argues.

Women in Egypt are often harassed by men and both sexes tend to take it as something normal. According to an April survey by U.N. Women, 99.3 percent of Egyptian women respondents said they had been sexually harassed.

But with Basma, Zaghloul started to fight this. Whenever they see a girl being harassed, she and her team of volunteers approach the young men or boys to sensitise them.

The first months were a struggle for the organisation. The police, themselves often active participants in the harassment, did not take the initiative seriously and caused more problems, rather than offering support.

But Zaghloul has noticed a shift over the past few months. For the first time, the police are supporting the initiative and actively participating in prevention.

Another key phenomenon is the rise of female officers patrolling the metro. Colonel Manal and her nine other women colleagues are especially eager to promote safety in the stations.

Harassment is a daily problem, but with El Eid, one of the biggest Muslim festivities, celebrated this week, private initiatives as well as government-related initiatives are on full run. Downtown Cairo has always been a place where sexual harassment reached the highest levels. And remembering the high numbers of sexual assaults during the same period last year, many women are afraid to walk down the streets of their own city.

There was only a lull in harassment during the first few days of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, when Tahrir Square was packed with families and the atmosphere was jovial.

But by the end of the eighteen days until the fall of Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011), sexual harassment had once again reached a peak. The problem isn’t directly related to any specific political or religious current, but rather has become a characteristic of Egyptian culture over the last few decades.

Manal has patrolled Egypt’s metro for the past two weeks to raise awareness about sexual harassment and assault against women. Heavily influenced by the Basma initiative, she says the police now have more authority and can arrest the perpetrators. In contrast to the early days of Basma, the police now cooperate readily. This week, Zaghloul and Manal will be working side-by-side.

Since the 1990s, women have been able to travel through the city by metro in one of the wagons reserved for female passengers.

But this rule is often violated. Men take their chances right before the metro doors close to jump into the women-only wagons. Occasionally they board by accident, but most enter on purpose knowing that the wagons are full of women, seeing it as an opportunity to ogle them.

“If a man gets into the wagon, right before the doors close, what can we do? Sometimes women get angry, but mostly they are afraid and look the other way while he harasses one of their fellow passengers,” says Zaghloul. “But when one of them speaks up, usually all of the women will follow. That is why we started this initiative, to make everybody speak up.”

Only a year ago, an Egyptian girl called Samira, for the first time in recent history in Egypt, filed a charge against one of the perpetrators after she was attacked by several men during a protest against military rule. She won the case.

“These stories are still rare. Women are still seen as the instigator rather then the victim of these actions. Therefore, they prefer to keep what happened to them secret,” says Zaghloul.

“Moreover, if a girl approaches the police, she often gets harassed by the officers themselves. So having female police in charge of this problem is an absolute must.”

Over the last few decades, female police officers weren’t to be found on the streets of Cairo. This was one of the jobs reserved for men only.

For months, Zaghloul and a few dozen Basma volunteers would patrol the packed metro and the crowded streets of Cairo. Today, Colonel Manal is giving them full assistance.

The former moral police officer regards journalists with suspicion – foreign journalists in particular. The interim regime that has ruled the country since President Mohammed Morsi was ousted in July has launched an anti-media campaign. By depicting all reporters as spies and collaborators with the Muslim Brotherhood, they have made Egyptians suspicious of the media. But a reference to Basma breaks the ice.

“Fifty years ago there were as many female as male police officers. We have to return to that equilibrium,” Manal says. “Only this way can Egyptian women feel safe on the streets of Cairo.”

Since the laws are not clear it is still hard to fight sexual harassment, but Manal nevertheless urges all victims of sexual assault to file charges.

Not all women believe progress has been made. Hend Elbalouty, 25, witnessed her sister become the victim of a sex mob in Tahrir Square earlier this year. The charges that she filed against the perpetrators were never dealt with properly.

“We are back at square one,” Elbalouty says wearily. “A police state that is dysfunctional. The fact that women have more power now won’t change the lawlessness that dominates Egypt’s legal system.”

Mohamed Khamees, a passenger in the male wagon, is not in favour of this initiative. “Fighting criminals isn’t a job for women. Even for their male colleagues these situations are often uncontrollable, so how can women deal with them?”

Traditional norms and values and a division of tasks for men and women are still deeply rooted in Egyptian society.

But Zaghloul remains optimistic. “The police are finally taking responsibility. It will take a while before men will accept the authority of women, but it is most definitely a step in the right direction.”

This road through the Zaatari refugee camp has been named Champs Elysées. Arab men come scouting around here for virgins. Credit: Liny Mutsaers/IPS.

By Annabell Van den Berghe
ZAATARI CAMP, Jordan, Nov 6 2013 (IPS)

Amani has just turned 22. Two months ago she fled from the civil war in Syria and left her house in capital Damascus. After a dangerous nightlong trip she arrived at Zaatari, the refugee camp just over the border in Jordan, where her parents and two sisters had already lived for over a year.

In Damascus she had lived together with her husband and five children in an apartment in the old city centre. Like many Syrian girls she got married when she was still a child. She had just turned 15 when she found the man of her dreams and decided to wed.

“In Syria things are different,” she tells IPS. “Girls get married very early; it is a tradition. But it doesn’t mean we are all married off to strangers. I got to choose my husband and he got to choose me. We could never be more happy than when we were together.”“I have seen Jordanians, Egyptians and Saudis passing by the tents in search of a virgin to take along. They pay 300 dollars, and they get the girl of their dreams.”

Five children later, the civil war broke out in the country she loved but whose unfair policies and corrupt government she disliked. Living in the capital where the government of President Bashar al-Assad was still in control did not make life easier for her and her family.

Her husband took up arms from the first days of the armed revolt and joined the Free Syrian Army. Soon, he became leader of one of the biggest battalions fighting the regime in Damascus.

Amani herself was also fighting with the rebels, despite the five children she had to look after.

“Women aren’t as strong as men, but sometimes they are more strategic. One can’t work without the other.” But a deadly attack on their apartment killed her husband and four of her children.

Amani escaped and only managed to save her youngest daughter.

“When I heard the regime’s air jets approaching, I hid my little daughter underneath the sink of our kitchen. She just fit in the small space next to the garbage. She was just a baby. The other kids had run to their dad to seek protection. And I, in panic and to see what was going on, ran into the street.

“Seconds after reaching the street an explosion destroyed the entire house. Within the debris I could only find my little baby.”

After the tragedy, Amani took the dangerous trip from Damascus to the refugee camp. But life in Zaatari was anything but a respite.

“We are locked up like monkeys in a cage. The moment you walk into the camp, there is no way out any more.”

The camp is overpopulated. A sea of tents spans 3.3 square kilometres, accommodating 150,000 refugees – three times the number it was built for almost two years ago.

The artificial settlement in the middle of a dry desert is afflicted by sandstorms and disease. The little humanitarian aid that makes it to the camp cannot reach all the people who need it. Those who want bread, or blankets to protect themselves against the bitter cold, have to buy them from the few individuals that receive this aid for free, and then sell it illegally.

An entire underground economy has taken root in the camp. The struggle for food is fierce, and only a lucky few earn enough money to sustain a family.

“I work seven days a week, at least 10 hours a day, for an NGO that takes care of the smallest children here in the camp. After working an entire week, I get three dollars. With an ill mother, an elderly father and a baby to take care of, this life is untenable,” Amani says. “My older sister and her husband still have all their children, thank god, but this means five extra mouths to feed.”

Nourishing a family of ten with only three dollars a week quickly became impossible. Amani brought her younger sister, Amara, to work at the same NGO. But doubling the income was still not enough to take care of all of them.

There was only one way to get money quickly, a route that many families took before Amani did – and that was to as good as sell one of the girls. Amani sent off her younger sister Amara, 14, to some sort of marriage.

“It isn’t rare in Syria to marry at the age of 16. Most Arab men are aware of this, and often come to Syria to find a young bride. These days, they come to find them at the camps, where almost everybody is desperate to leave.

“I have seen Jordanians, Egyptians and Saudis passing by the tents in search of a virgin to take along. They pay 300 dollars, and they get the girl of their dreams.”

Amani says she had no choice. “I knew she wasn’t in love, but I also knew that he would take care of her. I would have sold myself, but Amara was the only virgin in our family. We had to sell her, in order to allow the rest of us survive. What else could I do?”

Amara was married to a Saudi man that passed by their tent and asked her father for her hand. That was after he had met Amani, who had told him of the family’s financial desperation and that her younger sister was still not married off. With this marriage Amani secured critical money for her family – at least for the time being.