Tasneem Al-Shafee , Huda Azzawi – Hama

Translated by Jihad al-Hajj

The people of Hama governorate are living in harsh conditions, and the lack of the number of Syrian youth and the migration of most of them outside the country in search of a better future, women have been forced to enter the labor market significantly in the last three years, due to the absence of a breadwinner, and in an effort to secure their daily livelihood for their families, in a phenomenon that Hama has not witnessed before

Thana, a human rights activist opposed to the Syrian government in Hama, told “Hama today” that she sees this phenomenon as positive and not negative, so she entered into all the joints of society, and it is necessary to enter the labor market and open the doors of the development of her work Wide, provided that the work preserves her rights and protects her dignity, and takes into account the privacy of society and the environment she lives, and ensure that girls do not use illegal earning methods in search of a living.

The Syrian government was held responsible for the illegal actions taken by a small group of girls as a way to live, in addition to not supporting families that do not have a breadwinner and which indirectly forced girls to work in anything that guarantees them a good life as she says.

Part of the responsibility lies with the employers, who accept the employment of girls for low salaries, and this is considered a great injustice against them, which forces many girls to work within two morning and evening shifts to secure a better financial return.

Huda, a young woman in her twenties studying in open education in Hama, says that she works in a commercial company as an accountant in the morning and receives 400 thousand Syrian pounds, while her colleague is a male accountant who receives 700 thousand Syrian pounds, and despite her many requests to the employer to raise her salary, but he always refused and his answer was that if she wanted to leave work, there are dozens of others looking for such an opportunity, which forced her to work in a women’s clothing store in Hama market from three in the afternoon until eight in the evening, while she was forced to neglect her studies due to her work, although her university is only on Fridays and Saturdays, but she considers that she was completely deprived of rest all days of the week.

She spoke that unemployment today is no longer the preserve of young people, and there are hundreds of fettas in Hama who need to work without having good opportunities, and if there are, the monthly wages do not exceed 500 thousand Syrian pounds, on the other hand, the great competition between those wishing to work and their acceptance of any monthly salary given to them prompted employers to lay off old employees and find new employees who accept low salaries.

An employee of one of the local organizations in Hama, who refused to disclose her identity for security reasons, argued that job opportunities may be available to girls more in the Syrian capital Damascus and the Syrian coast, due to the openness of those governorates to the work of girls since the beginning of the crisis, while Hama governorate still reserves the work of girls in the labor market, and this is what tightens the noose on the work of girls due to the scarcity of suitable opportunities that guarantee decent working conditions for them.

She stressed that all organizations go to support families with food baskets and medical matters, while the actual need is to provide job opportunities and open work projects for single and married women alike, in order to secure a continuous financial return that guarantees them a decent living.

Among the most important proposed projects are household work projects, such as a factory for the manufacture of detergents, women’s accessories, and sewing, which women need today more than ever before with a significant decline in the standard of living.