Syria's refugee women particularly vulnerable - UNHCR Lebanon representative

Life is a daily struggle to make ends meet for these Syrian refugee women as they battle to maintain their dignity and care for their families in run-down overcrowded homes, insecure makeshift shelters and tents, UNHCR said in its report, “Woman Alone: The fight for survival by Syria's refugee women”.

“We have over 145,000 women taking care of children in circumstances that are terribly insecure, and these are women who have come from great security, who had homes, who had family, who had husbands who cared for them and who had social networks, and they find themselves in exile really shattered with having fend for themselves in ways they never had to before, but in addition they have an additional vulnerability living in traditional societies where they are also at risk,” UNHCR representative in Lebanon, Ninette Kelley, said.

Nearly four in five of the 2.9 million people who fled the civil war in Syria are women and children, and the numbers are growing daily, UNHCR said.

 Many of the women live under the threat of violence or exploitation, and their children face mounting trauma and distress, according to the report, based on interviews in early 2014 with 135 refugee women heading households in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.

“And while I think the report shows many stories of great kindness by local communities, by neighbors, by landlords, it also tells a darker story of how adrift these women can be and how vulnerable they can be to exploitation, harassment and sexual abuse which is on top of the challenges they have to face in taking care of their families in a refugee context which is very hard regardless of who you are,” Kelley added.

Forced to take sole responsibility for their families after their men were killed, captured, or otherwise separated, they are caught in a spiral of hardship, isolation and anxiety.

The number one difficulty reported by the women is a lack of resources, the report said. Most of the women are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table and buy basic household items.

Many have reached the end of their savings and have even resorted to selling off their wedding rings. Only one-fifth have paid work, and many find it hard to get a job, or have too much else on their plate.

Kelley said that shelter assistance, child care, help to get children to school and income support for women can do enormous things, as well as centers to bring together women from hosting communities and from refugee backgrounds.

“So for me, it was the communality of experiences and also the fact that we know what needs to be done, what is our problem right now is that we simply don't have the resources necessary to address this full-on in the manner that requires,” Kelley told Reuters.

Funding for Syrian refugees is not coming in fast enough, said UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards. The Syria Regional Response Plan, the main funding vehicle for refugees, is only 36 percent funded for 2014, according to U.N. data.

The pressure on host countries is growing as 100,000 new refugees register every month in neighboring countries, according to UNHCR.

Lebanon, a country of 4 million residents, recently marked the arrival of the one millionth Syrian refugee, putting pressure on domestic resources and leading sometimes to tensions with host communities.

In Jordan, which hosts 600,000 Syrian refugees, 80 percent live in urban areas, placing significant pressure on the country's scarce resources and labor market and fuelling resentment against the growing number of Syrians.