The Syria War: Women are sexually exploited in exchange for food

Relief workers said men would feed women for sexual favors.

Despite warnings about abuse three years ago, a new report shows it is continuing south of the country.

The United Nations charity agency said there is zero tolerance for exploitation and were unaware of cases of abuse by partner organisations in the region.

Relief workers told the BBC that exploitation is so widespread that some Syrian women are refusing to go to distribution centres because people would think they had offered their troops for help they brought home.

One worker claimed that some humanitarian agencies were turning a blind eye to exploitation because the use of third parties and local officials was the only way to get help in dangerous parts of Syria that international staff cannot enter.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) made an assessment of gender-based violence in the region last year and concluded that humanitarian aid was being exchanged for sex by various governors in Syria, reports “BBC” Transmission Periscope.

The report, titled “Voice from Syria 2018<18x1>, says: “examples are given that women and women marry officials for a short period of sexual service; in exchange for food taking; distributors looking for telephone numbers of women and girls; providing supplies for their homes “to get something in return to” or “in exchange for services, such as passing a night with them”.

The report adds “Grays and females without malewept, such as widows or divorced women, were considered especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation. ”

Sexual exploitation for the first time was reported three years ago. Danielle Spencer, a humanitarian charity consultant, has heard the accusations of a Syrian women group at a refugee camp in Jordan in March 2015.

She ran a group focus with some of these women showing her how men from local councils in areas such as Dara and Queitra had offered them sex help.. /Periscopi/