UN report on Syrian refugees
Thousands of Syrian refugee women are caught in a 'spiral of hardship, isolation and anxiety,' widowed or separated from their husbands and struggling to survive, the UN warns.
In a new report on Tuesday, the UN agency for refugees UNHCR highlighted the plight of some 145,000 Syrian refugee women who are fending for themselves and their families in dire circumstances across the Middle East.
'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,' said the report, unveiled by UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres at a Amman news conference.
Guterres said Syrian refugee women 'are suffering enormously' and appealed for more funds to help them.
'We need to enhance our direct cash support to vulnerable families and that is a very important instrument... unfortunately this is a very expensive protection and assistance instrument,' he said.
'We are still lacking $US200 million ($A216.39 million) until the end of the year to be able to extend this program of cash assistance to families in the way that covers the needs of the most vulnerable ones.'
The primary difficulty facing refugees women is lack of resources, with most struggling to pay rent and buy food, resorting to selling possessions, including wedding rings, and sending children out to work.
Most are unable to work because they are the sole caregivers for their children, and a third of the 135 women surveyed by UNHCR in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt said they do not have enough to eat.
The report urges host governments to keep borders open and limit entry restrictions, noting that one in five women were separated from their husbands because of visa or similar issues.
It calls on aid groups to take into account the particular challenges of lone female refugees and make sure women are protected, as well as to make support available for host communities.
And it urges donors and citizens to increase funding to agencies supporting Syrian refugees, nothing that Syria is the largest forced displacement crisis in the world.
At least 2.8 million Syrians have fled the conflict that began in their country in March 2011, with more than a million taking refuge in tiny neighbouring Lebanon.
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