Syrian refugee Camps are over-crowded, under-funded, and have their share of domestic violence, sexual exploitation, and rape. Hardly anyone who yields real power on the international scene seems to care. Rich Gulf Arabs and Jordanians are notorious for entering Syrian refugee camps, flashing their money and then purchasing wives. Often-times, these men are considerably older than their young, innocent virgin brides. Men in their 60s and 70s purchase young girls in their teens, or younger. Unfortunately, the child or young women brides are often mistreated, brutalized, and then tossed back to their camps like dirty rags.
In Jordan there are an estimated 450,000 Syrian refugees. Jordan's Zaatari camp conditions are quite harsh. The Government of Jordan doesn't seem to be phased.
The situation is overwhelming for Syrian refugee mothers.
Many Syrian males are either dead, imprisoned, missing, or are fighting back at home. Women are unable to accommodate adequate living conditions for themselves let alone their young ones. Lawlessness Syrian females are Mediterranean, beautiful, and speak a soft, beautiful, and easily comprehendible Arabic. This has a bedazzling effect on the women hunters. Pimps are present in and around the refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, facilitating the sales transactions.
As narrated to the BBC by a Syrian refugee, "We weren't happily married. He treated me like a servant, and didn't respect me as a wife. He was very strict with me. I'm happy that we're divorced ... I agreed to it so I could help my family. When I got engaged I cried a lot. I won't get married for money again." (By Umberto Bacchi, May 24, 2014; INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES UK)
In refugee camps in Jordan adults are presenting their daughters for marriage in order to protect them.
"There is a tendency to think that once [women] have crossed the border, they are safe ... But they just face a different violence once they become refugees," said Melanie
Megevand, a specialist in gender-based violence at International Rescue Committee charity. (By Phoebe Greenwood in Jordan, July 25, 2013; The Guardian: Syria Refugee Crisis: Rape and Domestic Violence Follow Syrian Women into Refugee Camps)
The self-proclaimed leader of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is guilty of countless crimes against innocent civilians, including wanton killings, assassinations of particular figures, forced slavery, sexual assaults, rapes, and other forms of sexual violence; forced marriages, mass terror, forced recruitments, desecration of corpses, large-scale persecution, forced conversions, and discrimination, thefts, destruction, mayhem, and kidnappings (even children). ISIL and whoever helped to plant this filthy cancer into this part of the world have wreaked havoc on millions of people. In addition, ISIL took advantage of the chaos, disorganization, and weakness in their region.
According to a U.N. report, "ISIL and associated armed groups have also continued to... perpetrate targeted assassinations of community, political, and religious leaders, government employees, education professionals, health workers... sexual assault, rape and other forms of sexual violence against women and girls, forced recruitment of children, kidnappings, executions, robberies." (By Dominick Evans and Maggie Fick, July 19, 2014; Reuters Edition US: U.N. Accuses Islamic State of Executions, Rape, forced Child Recruitment)
A documentary which aired on August 27, 2014 on the Kurdish STERK TV shows that certain segments of ISIL have been using rape against men as a tool for forced recruitment. The victims are threatened with exposure if they refuse. The rapists call these acts Jmarriage'.
Ferhan Salim Unuf Safen, 20, said that he had been abducted and then raped by whom he believes were ISIL elements.
"I Ferhan Safen fainted. When I came round they told me: 'you are now with ISIL'." (By Mawtani Staff, September 2, 2014; Mawtani: ISIL War Crimes: Gang Rape of Men)
Ahmed Hussein was drugged, kidnapped, tortured, and then gang-raped by whom he believes were ISIL elements.
"They 'married' me 15 times. Then they washed my head and put cologne on me. They told me no one could join ISIL without being married." (ibid)
NOTE: Captives and prisoners who Jconfess' to wrongdoings by themselves or others may have been coerced, beaten, threatened, or tortured to do so. But at the same time if there are countless victims claiming identical or similar stories about atrocities, this holds much weight.
Another in a series of heart-breaking stories is that told by Kamal, a Yazidi refugee from a small village in Northern Iraq. Written on a piece of paper that Kamal has unfolded are the names of 23 family members who were abducted by ISIL members a month earlier. During this campaign of terror, ISIL members assaulted through Yazidi villages located in Northern Iraq, leaving scores of innocent civilians dead. Another 17 names written on the piece of paper were Kamal's relatives who were killed by ISIL members as they tried to flee to Mount Sinjar.
Zeitoun, 23, a Yazidi refugee was captured by ISIS members in a farmhouse. She had fled to this farmhouse seeking shelter and safety following ISIS's capturing of many Yazidi villages. Captives were separated, men from women, women from girls. Therein, horrible things like rape, sexual assault, beatings ensued.
"They killed the men, my father and seven others, right in front of my eyes and then took some other women into a school, threw fuel over them and planned to burn them ... They put us in three cars, 22 girls and women, and took us to the village of Baaj, then on to Mosul ... Many things happened to us in the 11 days we were in Mosul ... You know why they had us ... they were passing us between themselves for sex ... Sometimes two men were hitting me at once and even though I was badly injured they would have sex with me every night, handing me from one man to the next ... We were desperate to wash our faces, to clean the blood, but they would pour gasoline into the water and force us to use that," said Zeitoun. (By Ruth Pollard, September 17, 2014; the Sydney Morning Herald World: