An Intersectional Analysis of Syrian Women’s Participation in Civil Society in the Post-2011 Context

Abstract

Based on qualitative research conducted in Lebanon and Turkey in 2018, this paper centers on Syrian women working in various civil society organizations (CSOs) in the Syrian post-2011 context. It examines conflict and host-context impacts on Syrian women’s participation in CSOs. Using an intersectional framework derived from feminist studies, it argues that gender, socioeconomic status and ethnic/national identity are key intersecting social markers that influence the ability of Syrian women to participate in CSOs in these countries. Findings also demonstrate the value of intersectional approaches in improving our current understanding of discriminatory practices against Syrian women in civil society.

Full text

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
Based on qualitative research conducted
in Lebanon and Turkey in 2018, this paper
centers on Syrian women working in vari-
ous civil society organizations (CSOs) in
the Syrian post-2011 context. It examines
conict and host-context impacts on
Syrian women’s participation in CSOs.
Using an intersectional framework
derived from feminist studies, it argues
that gender, socioeconomic status and
ethnic/national identity are key intersect-
ing social markers that inuence the abil-
ity of Syrian women to participate in CSOs
in these countries. Findings also demon-
strate the value of intersectional
approaches in improving our current
understanding of discriminatory practices
against Syrian women in civil society.
Keywords:
Syria, Civil Society,
Intersectionality, Gender, Conict
Introduction
Entering its tenth year, the Syrian civil war
continues to produce the largest global
mass displacement of our time. According
to UNHCR, 5.6 million Syrians have ed
their homeland seeking refuge in neigh
-
boring countries since 2011, while 6.6 mil-
lion are internally displaced. They rely on
assistance from the world’s “humanitarian
club,” the collective of Western donors,
United Nations (UN) agencies, and inter-
national non-governmental organizations
(INGOs) (Dixon et al. 110) and support from
growing numbers of host organizations
and those of Syrian civil society (CSOs).
In times of conict, women from civil soci-
ety play a key role in achieving peace and
creating more gender-inclusive postwar
societies (Mazurana and Proctor 24;
Bhattacharya 233; Bell and O’Rourke 300;
Colvin 334; Manchanda 4743; D. K. Singh
658). Post-2011 literature claims that the
participation of Syrian women in civil soci-
ety has increased (Williamson 3; Fourn 11)
but remains restricted to lower organiza-
tional levels (Abu-Assab and Nasser-Eddin
9; Al-Zoua’bi and Iyad 7). Syrian CSOs
before the war exhibited the same gender
inequality in leadership. In 2010, although
equal numbers of men and women were
employed in Syrian CSOs, only 13 percent
of leadership positions were held by
women (Al-Khoury et al. 13).1 This under-
FOCUS 69
An Intersectional Analysis of Syrian
Women’s Participation in Civil
Society in the Post-2011 Context
Dima Al Munajed

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 70
representation implies that female per-
spectives are lacking in organizations
working to assist primarily women and
children in a war context.
“Humanitarian club” funding with its ability
to direct the global development agenda
(Dixon et al. 110) transfers neoliberal
notions of gender equality into local CSO
structures and projects (Abu-Assab and
Nasser-Eddin 21; Fourn 16; Al-Zoua’bi and
Iyad 23). Conict itself inuences women’s
traditional gender roles
2
enabling them to
overcome exclusionary practices and
access male-dominated activities in public
spaces, assume new roles as heads of
households, and increase civic and politi-
cal engagement (Buvinic et al. 112).
Since the conict began, few studies have
addressed the post-2011 participation of
Syrian women in civil society. This paper
addresses this gap for Syrian women
working in international, host and Syrian
CSOs in Turkey and Lebanon after the war.
It attempts to answer the following ques-
tions: How has the ongoing Syrian conict
and host-country context inuenced the
participation of Syrian women in CSOs?
Which key social markers intersect with
gender in each context and limit this par-
ticipation?
Studies on gender inequalities in Syrian
civil society, such as Rabo’s Gender, State
and Civil Society in Jordan and Syria often
focus on gender aspects. Abu-Assab and
Nasser-Eddin , for example, attribute the
Syrian women’s leadership and deci-
sion-making exclusion in Syrian CSOs to
gender insensitivities in the CSOs and to
mirroring existing societal gender hierar-
chies at the workplace (9). Similarly,
humanitarian-aid discourses treat Syrian
women affected by the conict as a single
category, vulnerable and needing further
empowering or awareness (Couldrey and
Peebles 34). This homogenization lacks
contextual analysis and ignores the inu-
ence of other factors such as class and
rural/urban origins on Syrian women’s
positionalities.
This paper is the rst to apply an intersec-
tional approach derived from African-
American feminist studies in the latest
work by Hill Collins and Bilge,
Intersectionality, to identify social markers
inuencing Syrian women’s ability to par-
ticipate in civil society. Intersectional
approaches critique earlier feminist theo-
ries that assumed all women shared a
common reality (Campbell and Wasco
781; Kiguwa 227). Systems of oppression
are regarded as interlocking; race, class
and gender are key social markers
involved in dening African-American
women’s realities. Ever since then numer-
ous feminist researches have examined
intersections of gender with other factors
such as age, dis/abilities, ethnicity, nation-
ality, academic status, space and geopo-
litical location, settler colonialism, sexual-
ity, language and legal status (Kiguwa
228; López et al. and Chavez 5).
This paper argues that the ongoing con-
ict situation in Syria and resulting dis-
placement have triggered changes in the
traditional gender roles of Syrian women
and increased their participation in civil
society. In the context of Turkey and
Lebanon, the intersectional analysis
reveals that gender, socioeconomic status
and ethnic/national identity are key inter-
secting social markers inuencing the abil-
ity of Syrian women to participate in CSOs,
placing them in varying positions of privi-
lege or disadvantage.
Findings are based on qualitative research
conducted by the author during her doc-
toral eld research in 2018. Data was col-
lected through 80 in-depth interviews
conducted by the author with Syrian
women and men in host, Syrian, and inter-
national CSOs, in addition to expert inter-
views with government, academic and
research institutions in both countries.
To contextualize ndings, this paper
begins by outlining the current conditions
of Syrians and Syrian CSOs in Lebanon
and Turkey, the two countries hosting the
greatest numbers of Syrian refugees. The
following sections will illustrate in greater

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 71
depth how the conict and identied
social markers inuence Syrian women’s
current civil-society participation in these
countries.
A Precarious Existence: Living Conditions
of Syrians in Lebanon & Turkey
According to UNHCR, Turkey presently
hosts an estimated 3.7 million Syrian refu-
gees and Lebanon one million ever since
Syrians rst began crossing borders in
April 2011 to escape the civil war. These
refugees are unable to claim rights
awarded by the 1951 Refugee Convention
and its 1967 protocol, a fact with serious
implications for their living conditions,
rights and future prospects. Turkey is sig-
natory to the convention, but with a geo-
graphical limitation granting asylum rights
exclusively to European refugees (Chatty
21), while Lebanon has refrained from
signing the convention to avoid any legal
obligations toward Palestinian refugees
living in Lebanon since 1948 (Shamieh 55).
From the outset, the governments of
Lebanon and Turkey adopted contrasting
strategies for managing the refugee crisis.
Lebanon granted Syrians six-month visas
based on existing bilateral agreements
(Kabbanji and Kabbanji 14) and shifted
responsibility for the refugees to CSOs
and international organizations, particu-
larly UNHCR, all of which became the
main providers of health, education and
livelihood assistance (Janmyr 4; Civil
Society Knowledge Centre, “Formal
Informality, Brokering Mechanisms, and
Illegality” 15). Turkey adopted an open-
door policy under the framework of “tem-
porary protection” (İçduygu et al. 452). It
took over UNHCR’s responsibility for
determining refugee status (Woods 12)
and shouldered full responsibility for the
refuges by applying a non-camp and gov-
ernment-nanced approach that encour-
aged self-settlement outside the govern-
ment-built refugee camps (World Bank 2;
Chatty 20). New laws were introduced to
address Syrian refugees’ rights in 2013/14.
Syrian refugees were granted guest status
and placed under a newly established
General Directorate of Migration
Management (GDMM). Their access to
health care and education was formalized.
They were also permitted to work in
dened sectors and to register their busi-
nesses (İçduygu et al. 462). By 2018, there
were approximately 8,000 registered ref-
ugee-owned businesses in Turkey (Yassin
104). Outside the camps, Turkish CSOs are
a main source of assistance for Syrians
(Mackreath and Sağnıç 2).
In 2016, the EU-Turkey deal promised
Turkey 3€ billion in return for preventing
illegal migrants reaching Europe and
improving the living conditions of Syrians
internally (Singh 10). Government policies
shifted toward supporting integration in
education and the labor market (Cloeters
et al. 11) and in that same year President
Erdoğan announced that Syrians in Turkey
meeting certain requirements could
receive Turkish citizenship (Şimşek 177).
No similar shift toward integration or
improving living conditions occurred in
Lebanon. The Lebanese government still
refuses to acknowledge the presence of
refugees on its land, labeling Syrian refu-
gees as “temporarily displaced individu-
als” (Janmyr 7). When their numbers sur-
passed one million, it ordered UNHCR to
suspend registration of additional refu-
gees and thus resulting in increased illegal
migration and worsening living conditions
for illegal refugees (Janmyr 18; Shamieh
60; Kabbanji and Kabbanji 27). Syrians can
reside in Lebanon only if they are spon-
sored by a Lebanese citizen as economic
migrants in a very limited number of occu-
pations,3 or if they possess a UNHCR reg-
istration certificate (Janmyr 15). The
Lebanese government has been criticized
for redirecting developmental aid to sup-
port Lebanese benefactors instead of
Syrian refugees (Kabbanji and Kabbanji
32), for discouraging income-generating
projects to prevent settlement and inte-
gration, and for prohibiting UNHCR from
building permanent refugee camps

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 72
(Kabbanji and Kabbanji 13; Chatty 20;
Yassin et al. 37).
Compared to Lebanon, Turkey’s manage-
ment of the refugee crisis evinced greater
respect for the dignity of the refugees as
well as for their agency (Chatty 30).
However, studies show that displaced
Syrians in both countries suffer from nega-
tive social attitudes toward them and
exploitation in the labor market and hence
resulting in informal employment and low
wages that place many families below the
poverty line (Semerci and Erdoğan 26;
Şimşek 7; Shamieh 64). This forces families
to resort to negative coping strategies
which include child labor as well as child
marriage which has quadrupled among
some Syrian refugee communities com-
pared to before 2011 (Yassin 23; Kivilcim
201; Woods 20).
In Turkey, the language barrier and admin-
istrative bureaucracy limit the ability of
Syrians to benet from rights awarded to
them by the government as well as caus-
ing further challenges in education and
work (Cantekin 202; Knappert et al. 70;
Çelik and İçduygu 258; Woods 9). In,
Lebanon living conditions are far worse.
Syrians experience food, water and hous-
ing insecurity while living in informal
tented settlements or other forms of sub-
standard shelters under threat of eviction.
They suffer from arbitrary curfews (Chatty
24), verbal and physical harassment
(Alsharabati et al. 16), kidnapping by pro-
Syrian Lebanese government militias
(Fourn 5), and major bureaucratic and
nancial obstacles to registering new
births (Yassin 52) or obtaining residency
and work permits (Civil Society Knowledge
Centre, „Formal Informality, Brokering
Mechanisms, and Illegality“ 20), along with
limited access to education (Yassin 81) and
health services (Shamieh 65).
Syrian CSOs in Lebanon & Turkey
In 2010, some one thousand active Syrian
CSOs were providing nancial assistance
and social services to 10 percent of the
Syrian population (Al-Khoury et al. 4). Most
of these were concentrated in urban cen-
ters providing mainly healthcare support,
while nancial support was a main activity
in deprived rural areas. More than half of
these CSOs were established from 2000
to 2010, stimulated by government poli-
cies to develop the sector (Al-Khoury et al.
5) alongside deregulatory market policies
moving Syria in the direction of a Social
Market Economy (World Bank, The Toll of
War 4).
Developmental efforts in the sphere of
civil society were led by the Syrian presi-
dent’s wife, Asma Al-Assad, who in 2001
established The Syria Trust for
Development (The Trust), a local NGO
with development projects for Syrian
youth, children, women and rural villages
in governorates across Syria. At all levels,
the majority of Trust employees were
females. The Trust provided an attractive
working environment for highly skilled
migrant Syrians who had lived abroad and
returned to Syria. Speaking from personal
observation while working at the Trust as
a research analyst from 2008 to 2011, much
effort was put into developing the capa-
bilities of employees through training and
various learning opportunities. After 2011,
there would be many Trust employees
who would utilize these skills in other
INGOs or in launching their own initiatives.
A number of INGOs and UN agencies
were operating in Syria before the conict.
According to Syrian law, INGOs require a
local partner to execute projects in Syria.
In this new phase of activity, INGO col-
laborations with Syrian CSOs including
the Trust became more common, and
according to Wael Sawah, author on Syrian
civil society in an interview with Walker,
Syrian CSOs became more diverse in their
focus including environmental and cul-
tural activities as well as those involving
children and women.
Syrian CSOs underwent a second growth
spurt after the outbreak of war in 2011. The
numbers of new Syrian CSOs in the period
2011-2017 exceeded that which had

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 73
existed in Syria since 1959. Geographically,
they spread to other Syrian cities and
neighboring countries (Al-Zoua’bi and
Iyad 6). Ranging from informal commu-
nity-based organizations to professional-
ized NGOs that adopted Western NGO
cultures, language and practices (Dixon et
al. 112), these organizations initially focused
on providing aid and humanitarian relief
to meet refugee needs (Al-Zoua’bi and
Iyad 6). Efforts gradually shifted toward
development as the crisis continued, mir-
roring shifts in donor priorities. According
to a 2017 mapping of Syrian CSO activity,
around 40 percent were engaged in
humanitarian aid and 50 percent in social
and developmental activities (Al-Zoua’bi
and Iyad 18) Additionally, interviewees
often spoke of Syrian CSOs as safe spaces
where Syrian communities in host coun-
tries can reestablish links with their com-
munity.
In 2018, Syrian women and children com-
prised 81 percent of registered refugees
in Lebanon (Yassin 20) and 67 percent in
Turkey (Cloeters et al. 22) and thus making
them a main beneciary for CSOs in these
countries. In both Turkey and Lebanon,
“relatively nascent” Syrian CSOs (Abu-
Assab and Nasser-Eddin 8) nd them-
selves working alongside more devel-
oped local and international organizations
addressing a wide range of social issues
(Paker 10). Compared to the private sector,
better employment conditions in CSOs in
Lebanon and Turkey attract Syrians even
when employment is informal (Fourn 8;
Al-Zoua’bi and Iyad 6;).
In Lebanon, a common language has
allowed a number of Syrian cultural CSOs
to ourish, in addition to education and
health services that are underprovided for
Syrian refugees. Despite their supportive
role, many INGOs in Lebanon are per-
ceived as corrupt by Syrian refugees
(Shamieh 66). Legal barriers prevent
Syrians from being formally employed in
CSOs (Fourn 10) or to register their own
organizations. Yet Syrian CSOs do exist in
Lebanon, operating informally within
alternative structures such as non-prot
private companies or functioning in an
official capacity as Lebanese CSOs
founded by Syrians who are also Lebanese
passport holders. Turkey allows Syrians to
register their CSOs (Dixon et al. 113) and to
work in them. Relying on locally grounded
approaches, the role of Turkish CSOs in
facilitating integration and social cohesion
grows as they work to counter the ethnic-
based exclusionary nature of Turkish soci-
ety by providing language courses and
organizing events that bring both commu-
nities together (Paker 5; Cloeters et al. 26).
However, cooperation between Syrian
and Turkish CSOs remains limited due to
“hierarchical relationships, language bar-
riers and cultural differences” (Mackreath
and Sağnıç 3).
Inuence of Gender as a Social Marker
The 1973 Syrian constitution calls for gen-
der equality and removing obstacles that
prevent Syrian women’s advancement
(Kelly and Breslin 1). Their economic par-
ticipation was encouraged by the ruling
Baath party policies (Abu-Assab 17), and
the Syrian government’s ninth ve-year
plan (2001-2005) was committed to
increasing female participation in public
life and decision-making by 30 percent
(Kelly and Breslin 18). Still, in 2011 the
female labor participation rate had
dropped from 21 percent in 2001 to 12.9
percent in spite of improvements to wom-
en’s educational enrollment at all levels
and a growing economy. This gure, how-
ever, should be interpreted with caution
since it fails to capture informal employ-
ment rates among women. The rate of
labor-force participation for men over this
period had also declined from 81 percent
in 2001 to 72.2 percent in 2010, thus indi-
cating a failure of the economy to absorb
both male and female workers (SCPR 35).
Although Syrian women were the rst to
gain voting rights in the Arab world in
1949 (Kamla 606), little improvement fol-
lowed in their representation in parlia-

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 74
ment across time, increasing from 9.6 to
13.2 percent from 1997 to 2017.4 At higher
governmental levels and in the judicial
system, Syrian women have an even
smaller presence (Kelly and Breslin 2)
making it harder to enforce policies that
promote gender inclusiveness. Syria has
ratified the UN’s Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) with reserva-
tions in 2003 (Kelly and Breslin 2), and in
February 2019 the country passed amend-
ments on over sixty articles from the
Personal Status Law to improve women’s
rights.
In 2011, Syrian women displaced in
Lebanon and Turkey found themselves
once again in patriarchal environments
(Kivilcim 202; Khatib 438). Gender vio-
lence in Turkey occurs at double the rates
in Syria (Knappert et al. 64) while tradi-
tional gender roles limit the access of
Turkish women to leadership positions
(Aycan 454). An intersectional study on
the exploitation of working Syrian women
in Turkey nds that their refugee status
and gender intersect, subjecting them to
a “reinforced exculsion” caused by gender
roles in both host and home countries
(Knappert et al. 76). Despite this, Turkey’s
Kemalist legacy and non-discrimination
principle in its Civil Code, which for exam-
ple prohibits polygamous marriage and
requires the sharing of marital assets in
divorce, allows women in Turkey to enjoy
greater legal rights compared to women
in Syria. A young Syrian woman living in
Istanbul spoke of Turkish gender dynam-
ics and their inuence: “We were exposed
to another society, a more open one, a
girl’s education is just like a boy’s and the
quality of education here is more
advanced.”5
Despite the presence of an active
Lebanese civil society focusing on sexual
harassment and women’s rights (Abu-
Assab and Nasser-Eddin 33; Khneisser 2),
Syrian women in Lebanon suffer exten-
sively from gender-based violence and
exploitation, human trafcking and limited
access to health care, thus affecting their
health because of intersections in ethnic-
ity, gender and socioeconomic status
(Shamieh 68; Yasmine and Moughalian
27).
Nevertheless, this study nds evidence of
changing gender roles for Syrian women
as triggered by the conict and resulting
displacement. Many of the Syrian women
who were interviewed claimed to have
experienced their rst employment after
2011 in host countries so as to nancially
support themselves and their families and
thus becoming breadwinners or house-
hold heads.6 The absence of a male
household-head due to war is not the sole
driver of this phenomenon. Exploitation
and informal employment conditions in
both countries, as quoted in interviews,
prevent males from alone meeting their
family’s nancial needs as was the case in
Syria.
Discriminatory employment practices are
experienced by both Syrian men and
women in host countries. However, many
interviewed Syrian females, including top-
management position holders, spoke of
additional challenges in balancing work
and home responsibilities. The domestic
role of Syrian women as primary caretaker
remains mostly unaltered. The result is a
double burden exacerbated by poverty
and a lack of social networks in host coun-
tries. As the following quotes demon-
strate:
My husband doesn’t mind if I work,
but he wants everything perfect at
home, children, doctors, schools, my
husband doesn’t participate, he wants
everything.7
Another obstacle is having children.
We need family, or a mother in law, nur-
series are private, there are no public
nurseries; you also need nurseries that
are close to work. Turkish people rely
on family to help them solve this pro-
blem. At three years old, you can put

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 75
them in a preschool that costs 700 TL
a month; a typical salary is about 1600
TL.8
Some female respondents mentioned
changes in gender roles regarding house-
hold duties such as receiving support from
husbands in cooking or childcare. In
Turkey, the double burden often prevents
married Syrian women from enrolling in
Turkish-language classes. Typically these
women work from home, which increases
their isolation, or they gain employment in
low-skilled jobs that require less language
skills.
Accommodating domestic gender roles
and safety concerns drives Syrian women
in host countries to seek opportunities in
CSOs where better working conditions
and hours exist. Some offer child-friendly
spaces allowing mothers to accompany
young children to work. Religious CSOs
provide gender-segregated or female-
dominated working spaces perceived as
safer by husbands or parents because
they are less likely to suffer sexual harass-
ment or violence, making the transition
from private to public spaces easier for
women - as made clear by the following
quote from a 21-year-old Syrian woman
who works in a gender-segregated work-
space at a Turkish CSO that allows her to
accompany her infant to work: “This is a
child-friendly space, a space that is safe for
women and children.”9
Other studies have also documented sim-
ilar double-burden challenges faced by
Syrian women who began working after
the crisis (El-Masri et al. 14; Abu-Assab 23).
Civil society’s focus on Syrian women and
children creates a demand for female
rather than male employees. In Turkey,
interviewed CSO managers stated that
Syrian female beneciaries prefer to deal
with female rather than male staff. Donor
policies demanding female participation
across organizational levels with funding
preconditions further reinforces the
employment of Syrian women in CSOs.
Among CSOs that I visited in Lebanon and
Turkey, female employees were the clear
majority. Similarly, Fourn notes that in
Syrian CSOs in Lebanon:
We did not observe blatant gender
disparities in favor of men within any
of the NGOs we studied. On the con-
trary, women are very well represented
in leading positions, in stark contrast to
most economic sectors. Some associa-
tions dedicated to women have almost
only female staff (Fourn 11).
The growing presence of Syrian women at
the workplace and the importance of their
role as breadwinner in host countries after
the war is also being reected in contem-
porary Syrian art. One such example is the
artwork above by Syrian artist Mohamad
Khayata titiled The Giant Worker. The
exaggerated size of the Syrian female
worker in the artwork is a reection of their
growing visibility and importance to their
communities as they work to support
themselves and their families.
Influences of Ethnicity/Nationality-
Identity Social Markers
In Turkey, an “Arab” ethnic identity is
grounds for discriminatory behavior
against Syrians (Chatty 27). Turkey’s “ethnic
nationalism exclusively based on
Fig. 1: The Giant Worker. Source: Mohamad
Khayata.

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 76
Turkishness” (Aras and Köni 48) creates
barriers for Syrian Arabs who are seen as
culturally different, backward, dirty, poor,
beggars, abusers of the welfare state and
a threat to security and employment (Çelik
and İçduygu 255; Chatty 27; Yavçan 168;
Paker 5). The guest debate, grounded in
religious duty or conditional charity
instead of human rights, has been criti-
cized for worsening the problem (Chatty
21; Yavçan 167; Semerci and Erdoğan 29)
as demonstrated by the following quote:
While doing ofcial procedures, if you
just speak two words in Turkish they
transform and respect you a lot. They
really like Arabs who have learned Tur-
kish, otherwise they are very clearly ra-
cist, they don’t hide it.10
Syrians working in Turkish CSOs expressed
hope that promotion and better pay
would become possible once they
received Turkish citizenship. They also
expressed desires to found their own
CSOs one day. In light of Turkey’s current
arbitrary and class-based citizenship pol-
icy (Şimşek 1), this desire to create and
head an CSO can be also understood as a
means of surpassing ethnic discrimination
that prohibits them from accessing leader-
ship positions within Turkish CSOs. For
undocumented Syrians, involvement in
CSOs occurs only as informal employ-
ment, as the following quote demon-
strates: “I am not an ofcial employee here
because I do not have ofcial papers, so
I’m not entitled to a raise in salary or a
bonus.”11
In Lebanon a complicated political history
with Syria and perceived competition over
jobs, housing, health, and education ser-
vices has resulted in ofcial discriminatory
policies and social responses against
Syrian nationals that extend to civil society.
Lebanese CSOs openly express a prefer-
ence for recruiting Lebanese staff even
when their beneficiaries are mostly
Syrians, as demonstrated by the following
quote from the founder of a Lebanese
CSO providing services to Syrian refu-
gees: “We have no Syrian employees; we
want to empower the Lebanese commu-
nity so they get benets.”12
Socioeconomic Class & Syrian CSO Elitism
Socioeconomic class13 inuences the of-
cial status of Syrians in host countries and
their participation in civil society. This is
more clearly visible in Lebanon where
Syrians with second passports and those
who can afford legal assistance are able to
overcome bureaucratic barriers and
secure residency permits or register CSOs,
while Syrians at the other end of the social
spectrum live in dire conditions with few
rights and little hope of securing CSO
employment opportunities. In Turkey, edu-
cated wealthy Syrians can afford to estab-
lish their own businesses and CSOs; they
also face fewer difculties in obtaining
residencies and are priority candidates for
Turkish citizenship.
The increasing NGOization of local CSOs
reinforces socioeconomic differences that
produce elitist leaderships in Syrian civil
society. CSOs compete for funds from
INGOs and Western governments to sur-
vive, making staff with foreign-language
skills and NGO-related experience essen-
tial (Mackreath and Sağnıç 62; Dixon et al.
99; Svoboda and Pantuliano 16). Generally
speaking, within Syrian CSOs, ndings
conrm that the higher the educational
degree the higher the position within the
organization for both males and females.
Educational attainment among Syrians,
however, is inuenced by urban/rural dif-
ferences and gender. In 2010, 60 percent
of the Syrian population held a primary-
school degree or less. Women were 2.5
times more likely to be illiterate than men,
with rural illiteracy occurring at twice the
rate of urban areas (SCPR 34). Syrian
women from rural areas are therefore less
likely to have postgraduate degrees than
their urban counterparts, and because
civil-society organizations in Syria are con-
centrated in urban areas, namely

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 77
Damascus followed by Aleppo and
Lattakia (Al-Khoury et al. 5), they are also
less likely to have had the opportunity to
accumulate NGO-specic experience.
The inuence of socioeconomic status on
education and the accumulation of NGO
skills is more evident in Lebanon.
Prominent female Syrian leaders often
have wealthy urban backgrounds and
higher educational degrees from Western
universities in development-related sub-
jects such as Gender Studies and Peace
and Conict Studies. Fourn conrms this
educated urban middle-class characteris-
tic among Syrians engaged in civil-society
work in Lebanon (4).
The language barrier in Turkey alters this
dynamic by creating demand for Syrians
uent in Turkish and Arabic in Turkish
CSOs. Management in these CSOs relies
heavily on Syrian interpreters, teachers
and psychologists in projects with Syrian
beneciaries. This creates opportunities
for young unskilled Syrians who took
advantage of free language courses and
learned Turkish to accumulate CSO work
experience, attend training sessions, sup-
port their livelihood and nance further
education. Several Syrian women who
were so engaged did express hopes of
establishing their own CSOs in the future.
For Syrian CSOs in Turkey, access to alter-
native funding from Arab countries allows
them to bypass the complications involved
in Western donations. With each year, they
also develop their CSO structures and
skills further. This is more challenging for
young Syrians in Lebanon where access to
higher education is restricted by legal
issues, academic qualifications, and
affordability (Yassin 82).
Conclusion
This paper nds that the ongoing Syrian
conict and displacement have created
conditions resulting in a greater presence
of Syrian women in the public space as
workers and members of civil society in
Turkey and Lebanon. International, host
and Syrian CSOs are key sites for this
increased participation. This phenomenon
is inuenced by a number of external fac-
tors including the existence of better
working conditions for women in CSOs
compared to the private sector, higher
demand in CSOs for female rather than
male employees, international donor pol-
icies that support female participation,
and opportunities for capacity develop-
ment within these organizations that allow
unskilled Syrian women to gain experi-
ence and further advance within the sec-
tor. The ongoing Syrian conict and con-
sequential growth of civil society has been
a catalyst for change in Syrian women’s
traditional gender roles. This change is
slowly nding its way into the domestic
sphere of Syrian families, but traditional
gender roles persist in the majority of
households and place a greater burden
on women who struggle to manage both
work and home duties. For Syrian women
with children, involvement in civil society
and the public sphere is even more chal-
lenging.
For Syrian women in Turkey and Lebanon,
this paper reveals that their socioeco-
nomic status and ethnicity/nationality
intersect with gender to inuence their
ability to participate in civil society. It also
demonstrates how gender studies focus-
ing solely on gender as the primary cause
for discrimination against women can
result in over-simplistic interpretations
that fail to adequately capture other key
sources of discrimination such as the situ-
ations highlighted above where socioeco-
nomic status and ethnic identity play a
bigger role in determining participation
than gender.
The negative effects of these social mark-
ers are stronger in Lebanon as compared
to Turkey, which allows Syrian women to
work in and establish CSOs. Ethnic identity
mainly prevents Syrian women from occu-
pying leadership positions in Turkish
CSOs. In Lebanon, discriminatory policies
and social practices greatly hinder the par-
ticipation of Syrian women along socio-

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 78
economic lines and those of national iden-
tity.
It is unclear whether Syrian women can
use their increasing presence within civil
society to advocate collectively for greater
gender equality and participation in all
public spaces within host countries and in
Syria. Evidence from my interviews shows
that a strongly unied and representative
feminist agenda in Syrian civil society has
yet to materialize - as might be expected
from a civil society that currently places a
priority on dealing with the humanitarian
impact of conict rather than advocating
greater rights for women (Abu-Assab and
Nasser-Eddin 12). Further research is
needed to examine the progress of Syrian
civil organizations and the role of Syrian
women within them as they advance their
skills and capabilities.
Dima Al Munajed
is a doctoral candidate at the Center for
Development Research (ZEF) University
of Bonn, Germany. Her current research
examines the impact of conict on
gender in Syria, centering on the
participation of Syrian women in civil
society organizations in host countries:
Turkey and Lebanon. Her work engages
with intersectional feminist approaches,
exploring links between conict, civil
society, culture and gender in the
contemporary Arab context. She holds
an MSc in Sustainable Development
from the School of Oriental and African
Studies in London, UK, and a B.A. in
Political Studies from the American
University of Beirut, Lebanon.
email: dima.almunajed@gmail.com

Middle East – Topics & Arguments #14–2020
FOCUS 79
Notes
1 Contact UNDP Syria for
obtaining a copy of the
report.
2 Gender here is understood
in the socially constructed
and dynamic sense,
inuenced by current
evolving political and post-
Arab Spring events.
3 Decree No. 29/1 dated
15/02/2018 Ministry of
Labour, Lebanon, see
www.labor.gov.lb/Temp/
Files/74a11682-051a-4d83-
a8fe-905a54b3968f.pdf.
Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
4 Figures taken from UNDP
estimates for Syria, see
http://hdr.undp.org/en/
indicators/31706. Accessed 17
Apr. 2020.
5 Personal Interview. In-
person meeting. 27 Oct. 2018.
6 In 2018 there were 18
percent of Syrian households
which were Female-headed
(Yassin 41).
7 Group Interview. In-person
meeting. 18 Sept. 2018.
8 Personal Interview. In-
person meeting. 19 Oct.
2018. .
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Dr. Irit
Eguavoen for commenting
on earlier versions of this
paper, and the German
Academic Exchange
Service(DAAD) for funding
my doctoral studies and the
research used in this paper.
9 Group Interview. In-person
meeting. 19 Sept. 2018.
10 Personal Interview. In-
person meeting. 26 Oct.
2018.
11 Personal Interview. In-
person meeting. 18 Sept.
2018.
12 Personal Interview. In-
person meeting. 6 Nov. 2018.
13 Understood here in
relation to urban/rural
dichotomies and relative
poverty preventing access to
education.
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ISSN: 2196-629X
https://doi.org/10.17192/
meta.2019.12.7933
(CC BY 4.0)