Empowering women and girls and enhancing access to GBV prevention services in Western rural of Aleppo.

Empowering women and girls

Introduction and needs to our project of Empowering women

Women and girls living inside Syria continued to face discrimination and exclusion, economic deterioration, high levels of insecurity and GBV in almost all walks of life in 2020. According to Voices report 2021, Economic deprivation, combined with the psychosocial impact of living with conflict for 10 years, have led to not just an increase in violence against women and girls, but also the continued normalization of violence across society. In addition to IPV and family violence against girls, especially by their brothers and fathers, forms of GBV that continue to affect the daily lives of women and girls in Syria in 2020 included sexual harassment and sexual violence, including in places of detention and within the context of kidnapping.

According to HNO 2021 : Armed conflict, economic deterioration, displacement and the COVID-19 crisis all have a gendered and disproportionate impact on girls and women in Syria. This is manifested primarily through different forms of gender based violence (GBV), especially early/forced marriage, intimate partner and family violence, sexual harassment and sexual violence (including rape), denial of resources, emotional/psychological violence and physical abuse, in all walks of life.

Early marriage remains prevalent in all governorates, with 62 percent of communities mentioning that it is an issue for adolescent girls . Girls as young as 11-12 years old are married off, including for serial and/or temporary marriages, believing it will protect them and ease the family’s financial burden. In some locations, forcing girls to take hormones to hasten puberty, with a consequent earlier age of marriage and pregnancy, have continued to emerge and be addressed.

COVID-19: a new risk factor for GBV against this already difficult picture for women and girls in Syria that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic needs to be examined. Restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the disease severely affected employment and income, education, availability of services and freedom of movement in the context of the economic crisis. Worsening conditions across all of these areas, in turn, were linked to an increase in violence within the home, including IPV against women and violence against children.

The Project of Empowering women

The project endeavors to implement complemented activities in the humanitarian field in western rural of Aleppo province. This intervention will strengthen permanent protection assistance and services in IDP sites through the establishment of facilities inside and/or in close proximity to IDP sites and make a contribution towards Life-saving humanitarian assistance and protection to the most vulnerable people with an emphasis on underserved areas with high severity of needs depending on the expansion of the activities of two existing protection centers WGSS specialized in GBV in Atareb and Kafr Karmin villages.

The project includes the following activities:

– Forming of three mobile teams to provide of psychological first aid (PFA), information/awareness, individual and emergency case management support, life skills program, GBV services, referrals to GBV services and other services. The teams will cover the Daret Azza and Atareb sub-district in rural Aleppo in addition to the surrounding camps. (every sub-team will consist of two mobile teams, two social workers and case management workers).

– Support the case management activities (Case fund) for 100 survivors. This assistance will be provided in kind and cash. The estimated amount for each beneficiary is 100 USD. Based on Cash Assistance in GBV Case Management Guidance Note June 2019.By GBV-sub cluster.

– Engaging 1760 women and girls with vocational activities in WGSS and ten point in camps.

– Establishment of eleven protection desks in camps inside and/or near IDP sites to provide specialized and non-specialized protection services, PSS support, Individual Protection Assistance and Emergency Case Fund in IDP sites.

– Provide 550 men, women, girls and boys with disabilities reached with protection services to specialized and non-specialized services like (peer-support, awareness raising, skills development, PSS, case management and Ambassador’s programme to increase PwD participation in humanitarian action).

This intervention will support 23,715 beneficiaries affected by the Syrian crisis (4982 men,8414 women, 4364 boys and 5955 girls, 125 men PWD, 125 women PWD, 150 boys PWD, 150 girls PWD) in Atareb and Daret Azza – sub-districts by promoting their accessibility to the protection assistance significantly. The project is designed to fit and be flexible to deal with conditions of constant changes and continuous of flows of IDPs who move between several locations.

 Also, the project team will ensure data protection, confidentiality at all stages, protocols of information sharing and acquiring informed consent from beneficiaries. The project activities will be in line with Protection Cluster Recommendations, SOPs, Inclusive COVID-19 response – NWS Disability – TWG on Inclusion Guidance Note April 2020 and GBV SC guidance note on GBV service provision in the time of COVID-19 such as Hand sanitizing when conducting the sessions/ Gathering of five beneficiaries per session and social distance/Measure the temperature for each beneficiary as a precaution/ Plan has been put for online sessions/ Put awareness posters about Corona disease during sessions.

This project will complement the ongoing UNFPA project through covering of more area of intervention in Jebel Samaan ,where the two teams will work together under the same management and technical support, also the project will support the centers by vocational activity.

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