CAIRO - When her husband was killed by Bashar Al-Assad's shabiha (thugs), she felt that her country was no longer her home and that she must put her family's safety first. She took her three girls, ages between 15 and 18, and her ten-year-old son to Egypt with only LE5,000 (around $700) in her handbag. "I left Syria because I feared for my daughters. I chose Egypt, because I feel that it is my second home. Some of our charitable neighbours help us," says Suzanne A., who has settled in one of Egypt's new cities. "Can you blame me for trying to save my daughters by searching for good husbands for them?" she asks. "The issue is not a big dowry, but security. Unfortunately, some people don't understand that and they try to exploit our bad situation and weakness, in order to tarnish our image," explains the woman, one of many Syrian refugees who began to arrive in Egypt in large numbers early last summer. The UN says more than 70,000 people have been killed in a spiralling war that broke out in March 2011 in Syria, after the army unleashed a crackdown on a peaceful revolt which morphed into an armed uprising. When there is a war, casualties are expected, but the war in Syria has not only caused tens of thousands of casualties, but something much worse. The sexual exploitation of women has become a sad reality that accompanies wars. Sadly, it happened before, during the war in Bosnia as well as the invasion of Iraq. Tens of thousands of young girls were funnelled into the sex trade after they fled to Syria from Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Many local and foreign newspapers, report that Arab men, from the Gulf, Jordan, Egypt and other countries, loaded with cash and in search of flesh, prey on Syrian refugee girls, the younger the better. They try to persuade the Syrian girls to marry them, pretending that they only want to protect them. These men exploit the poverty and desperate need of Syrian families, mainly from the working classes. "We've heard about this, but no-one knows whether it's for real or just rumours. Some people think Al-Assad's regime has been spreading rumours about men marrying poor, underage Syrian refugee girls, taking advantage of the fact that their families are desperate for money. “This is not fair. If these men really wanted to help the Syrian refugees, they would make donations to help improve our conditions," says Talal Ghali, a Syrian in his sixties who has succeeded in finding a home in Egypt with the help of ‘helping committees', run by some mosques. Although no-one knows exactly how many Syrian refugees there are in Egypt, there is no doubt that the number keeps on increasing, as the Syrian crisis grows worse and Syrians have little chance of returning home anytime soon. This has paved the way for the emergence of a network of marriage brokers. Because of economic pressures, many Syrian girls agree to get married. Companies that arrange marriages distribute flyers that encourage this. One flyer, reportedly distributed at the Nasser Mosque in Damanhour in el-Beheira Governorate in the Delta, offers ‘well-mannered, veiled Syrian women' for marriage. Gamal Eid, Director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), says that the marriage of Egyptian men to female Syrian refugees in exchange for money is a form of human trafficking. The National Council for Women (NCW) sent two letters to Minister of Interior Mohamed Ibrahim and Minister of Justice Ahmed Mekki last month, requesting that the ministries put an end to this shameful practice. In a recent statement, the NCW cited a memorandum sent last week to President Mohamed Morsi by the International Union for Egyptian Women (IUEW), calling for immediate intervention to stop such marriages. The IUEW stated that Syrian women are sold to Egyptian men for only LE500 per wife, adding that such marriages abound in 6th October City, 10th Ramadan City and New Cairo, as well as in Alexandria, Al-Daqahliya and Al-Gharbiya governorates. In the space of one year, 12,000 of these ‘marriages' have taken place, according to the IUEW. "I've been here in Egypt for eight months and I haven't seen this happening. I only know three Syrian women who got married to Egyptians last year, but in fact their husbands give them all they need. “They love and care for them as they would Egyptian brides, and there was none of this LE500 nonsense. I think it's just rumours," says Jomana, a young Syrian woman who prefers to work for a living, rather than getting married. A Facebook page entitled ‘Syrian Women with the Revolution' has received a lot of provocative messages like “I am an Egyptian looking for a Syrian refugee to marry" and “I am an Algerian looking for a Syrian refugee to marry." The administrators of this Facebook page wish people would stop sending them messages like this, because Syria is at war and it's not the time to think about marriage. In another post, the admin of the popular Pro-Revolution page lost her temper: “I say to those who exploit our situation to marry our free women that we have got real men in Syria who can tear down mountains and that our free women can marry our men." On Twitter, there is a hashtag called ‘#Refugees and not captives'. On Facebook a campaign has been launched with the same name, ‘Refugees and not Captives', to protect Syrian women from disguised slavery.
