10 Miles From Their Past: Za’atari Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordan

January 1, 2022

Jordan opened the Za'atari refugee camp in 2012, which has now gradually turned into a permanent settlement. Za’atari is home to an estimated 80,000 refugees, more than half of which are children.

Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan. World Bank Photo Collection. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Less than 10 miles from the Syrian border sits the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan’s desert. A camp that began as a collection of tents has now become an urban settlement with thousands of portacabins. At its peak, Za’atari hosted 150,000 refugees, today the camp hosts 80,000. For many it’s the closest thing to home, however many still struggle to find work to make a steady income.

Syrian Refugee Learning To Sew. UN Women Gallery. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Za’atari refugee camp has all of the components that make up a city, including 32 schools, 58 community centers and eight medical clinics. Despite all of this aid, there are still insufficient resources for the influx of refugees housed there. Less than a fifth of the population has current work permits. Many men work illegally to support their families. Many women are excluded from employment and have to fight against social norms that call for them to stay home. However, the camp has provided classes geared towards women to teach them basic skills to help them earn an income. The benefits of these classes is to restore routine in their lives, fight off cultural norms and aid in their mental healing. It also helps them regain purpose and become self-sufficient.

Children in Za’atari on a Makeshift Swing. United Nations. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Children make up 58% of the population in Za’atari and an estimated 22,000 children are enrolled in school. They attend makeshift classes, but organizations are calling for an increase in financial aid. There is a need for more trained teachers and improved safety measures to facilitate the children’s access to class. Many girls face harassment and abuse as they walk to classes or as they walk back home. In addition, there’s a lack of resources for the children that need extra support in learning the material. The civil war has impacted where the children stand against their global peers in regards to education. Half of Syrian middle school-aged children are unable to read at a second-grade level and an average of 59% of middle school students could not do a second-grade math problem. In addition, only 1% of youth pursue higher education due to difficulty in obtaining transcripts, unfamiliar entrance exams, a language barrier and lack of funds.

The trauma experienced by both adults and children from the war and subsequently the resettlement process into another country, has led to a serious impact on the mental health of refugees. More than three-quarters of Syrian refugees have mental health symptoms. The violence, killings of loved ones and peers, destruction and frequent fear for their lives has caused PTSD, depression and anxiety, as well as intellectual and cognitive difficulties. To escalate the situation, there’s a stigma towards individuals with mental illness in Middle Eastern countries. Therefore, not many express the difficulties they face and the trauma they have experienced. The Za’atari camp offers mental health aid to the individuals and guides them towards healing so they are able to lead productive and mentally stable lives in the future.

The cost of keeping the 530-hectare camp operating every single day costs $500,000. Each person in the family (regardless of age) receives JOD 23 ($32) a month to cover food expenses. The money can be used in the two contracted supermarkets (Safeway and Tazweed) located in the camp or the four bread selling points. This allows the camp refugees to choose from a variety of produce to feed their families, bringing a sense of normalcy. Moreover, each family also receives 35 liters of water a day used for cleaning, drinking, eating and flushing the toilet. The water is filtered and chlorinated to meet the standards of tap water across Jordan. Water is brought in by dozens of tanker trucks or pumped from desert boreholes that directly feed water to the porta cabins. Electricity is provided through the solar power plant in Za’atari and has eased families' living conditions in the camp. It has improved their safety and security while facilitating food storage and allowing children longer hours to do their homework. The plant has helped save $5 million per year in electricity bills.

The Za’atari camp is a safe place where many aid workers and volunteers live. However, many forms of crime still exist: theft, violence, smuggling. Crime erupts as people are frustrated with their living situation and the limited resources available to them. There is little formal employment available within the camp. This results in refugees selling personal items, supplies received from organizations and, at times, prostitution. A young refugee girl said that she sells her body to support her family back home during the war. She makes, on average, $70 a day and although she fears persecution by Jordanian authorities, she explains that it’s her only way to help her family. Prostitution in Jordan is illegal and punishable. If foreign women and men are found guilty, they can be deported. Desperate families will at times sell their young daughters and forcefully marry them to men in the refugee camp.

Za’atari Refugee Camp, Jordan. United Nations. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The camp will continue to host and support refugees through education, livelihood opportunities and work permits. This will alleviate the trauma and circumstances lived by many Syrians. The Za’atari leaders hope to return a sense of dignity to the refugees and bring opportunity to the camp inhabitants with the resources provided.

To Get Involved

UNHCR helps provide aid to Syrian refugees who have fled. They provide shelter kits and non-food items as well as protection services and psychosocial support to those who remain in Syria.

To learn more about UNHCR click here.

To support the Syrian refugees through UNHCR click here.

A Surge in Condemnations Follows Israel’s Annexation Plans for the West Bank

June 26, 2020

The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, is planning to annex parts of the West Bank on July 1 to extend Israeli sovereignty to new areas. This is a controversial and illegal move according to U.N. experts and much of the international community but comes with the support of the Trump administration.

According to 47 experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, "The annexation of occupied territory is a serious violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions, and contrary to the fundamental rule affirmed many times by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly that the acquisition of territory by war or force is inadmissible. These experts also deemed Israel’s annexation plan “a vision of 21st century apartheid.”"

Palestinians, Palestinian leaders, and leaders of the Arab world have largely condemned this plan. In the first attempt of its kind, the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, wrote in an Israeli newspaper to appeal “directly to Israelis in Hebrew to deter Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from following through on his promise to annex occupied territory as early as next month,” says The New York Times. The article was a refutation of Netanyahu’s assertion that Arab countries gain too much from Israel to continue supporting Palestinians. In addition to those concerns, many former Israeli defense officials argue that the annexation plan could increase violence within the West Bank, where Palestinians are facing an increase in unemployment. “Imposing Israeli sovereignty on territory the Palestinians have counted on for a future state,” Israeli experts say, “could ignite a new uprising on the West Bank. Neighboring Jordan could be destabilized.”

The news of an annexation plan has brought about new pleas from the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS), created in 2005 by Palestinians to end international support for Israel’s actions in the West Bank . In May 2020, various Palestinian civil rights groups, human rights organizations, and unions “called on governments to adopt ‘effective countermeasures, including sanctions’ to ‘stop Israel’s illegal annexation of the occupied West Bank and grave violations of human rights.’”

The BDS movement saw a huge victory on June 11 when the European Court of Human Rights shut down France’s attempt to criminalize BDS activists in a 2015 case. At the time of the arrests, the activists were said to be inciting discrimination against a group of people for their origins, race or religion. In the end “the European judges ruled that as citizens these activists had the right to express their political opinions, which are in no sense discriminatory against a race or a religion.” Netanyahu’s expeditious plan to annex is likely to bring about more condemnations from the international community and increase support for the BDS movement, but it is unclear whether these actions will actually halt his plan.

Hanna Ditinsky

is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is majoring in English and minoring in Economics. She was born and raised in New York City and is passionate about human rights and the future of progressivism

Health Needs in Migrant and Refugee Communities

December 2, 2019

Lack of access to health care, trauma, and poor living conditions all contribute to public health concerns of migrant populations.

The Patrons of Veracruz provide food for migrants traveling across Mexico. Giacomo Bruno. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Over the years of the Trump Administration, stories of maltreatment of migrants either at the border, or well-established in country, keep surfacing. This pattern is mirrored in other countries around the world, often with a large anti-immigration rhetoric. In the US, this has stemmed from a dislike and distrust of illegal immigrants but often spreads to legal migrants and refugees as well, at a huge health cost to those trying to enter.

Trump’s policies to reduce numbers crossing the Mexican border include a, now revoked, policy to separate children from their families and a Remain in Mexico policy that prevents migrants from entering the US while waiting for asylum cases. With this policy over 50,000 migrants have been sent to wait in Mexico. They now live in overcrowded camps with limited access to health care. NGOs struggle to keep up with increasing numbers and problems such as clean water and waste management. US policies are supposed to allow children and those ill or pregnant to remain in the States, but this policy is often ignored.

Once in the US, it is still difficult to access care. Detention centers are overcrowded and trauma from being separated from family can lead to many mental health issues. Migrants are not covered by government programs and have to seek health care through out-of-pocket costs or community health and non-profit organizations. Language and fear limit many from getting care when something might be wrong. Poor migrant working conditions and food insecurity have lasting impacts on migrant health once in the country.

Australia has had similar policies to deter migrants by sending them to wait for asylum on nearby pacific islands where resources are lacking. In 2018, there were almost 1500 detained in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Health organizations working on the islands found a massive mental health crisis with one third of the 208 people treated on Nauru having attempted suicide. It was found that in the 2017-2018 financial year, the Australian government spent over $320,000 fighting medical transfer requests.

The US and Australia have showcased how inhumane policies surrounding immigration comes at a great health cost. But the majority of refugees and migrants, aren’t in the US and Australia, they are in countries neighboring conflict. In fact, 86% of migrants are in developing countries. Jordan has been extremely generous with accepting refugees from neighboring countries but a large influx during the Syrian Civil War is straining Jordan’s ability to provide. In 2018, they had to increase the cost of medical treatment for refugees, which before 2014 was free, now leaving most refugees unable to cover basic health costs.

The World Health Organization is working to try to make sure migrant health needs are met but with 258 million international migrants, 68 million of which are refugees, it is not an easy job.

DEVIN O’DONNELL’s interest in travel was cemented by a multi-month trip to East Africa when she was 19. Since then, she has continued to have immersive experiences on multiple continents. Devin has written for a start-up news site and graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Neuroscience.