(042) Perceptions, Attitudes, and Lived Experiences of Syrian Women Refugees Regarding Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Abstract

Abstract Introduction The relationship between conflict and the deterioration of women’s sexual and reproductive rights has been long established in the literature. However, the effect of conflict on women who become refugees is a growing field of research. Recent studies have shown that the experiences of living in conflict zones, prior to becoming refugees, impacts women’s sexual and reproductive health considerably. Reproductive sexual health and rights are particularly more challenging for refugee women as they constitute a new type of population rather than a temporary condition. In fact, international attention to reproductive sexual health needs of refugee women increased over past thirty years with the increasing global conflicts and crisis. Objective General objective: • To close a gap in scholarship on the lived experiences of women refugees from Syria’s attainment of reproductive rights, and to identify the multi-level factors that impact upon this attainment of these rights, with a specific focus on gender-based violence. Specific objectives: • Discover the specific needs and concerns of refugee women seeking to attain their reproductive rights and freedom from gender-based violence; • Engage decision makers in dialogues about how to tackle the vulnerability of refugee women and girls vis-à-vis reproductive rights, and gender-based violence, about how to implement a gendered perspective when designing policies to assist and empower women and girl refugees, and to increase their access to sexual and reproductive health services; Provide information to healthcare providers and humanitarian actors in the problems and recommendations, as told by service recipients themselves; Methods The research is qualitative in nature. It combined several qualitative methods of data collection, including face-to-face interviews, focus groups, and participant observation. Results Results of focus group discussions revealed that women are aware of various forms of violence inflicted upon them by husbands, health services, and community. They experience physical violence, sexual violence, and cope with it in fear and silence to avoid retaliation from husband (marrying another woman), and from her family. Women refugees reported also barriers to access healthcare services like discrimination, mistreatment, and shaming, which seriously affected seeking care for reproductive and sexual health problems. Street harassment was also reported at different levels (taxi drivers, stores, host community). Survivors of violence used few coping mechanism basically being passive, seeking secretly reproductive health care (OCPS, IUDs, meds), and focusing on their children. Conclusions Women refugees are subjected to all form of violence and they need immediate and log term support in terms of empowering them to speak against abuse, freedom to chose to work or not, and education which should be supervised by the international agencies like UNHCR who must be watchful of GBV and sexual violence befalling on the women refugees. Health care providers need to be more culturally sensitive and provide dignified care to those women. Disclosure No