The Atlantic: Working at a Women’s Clinic in a Syrian Refugee Camp
Hannah Myrick Anderson, medical student at the University of Kansas

“…While continued aid is needed to sustain the [Syrian] refugees in the Zaatari camp, it seemed to me that many of the troubles that the women in the camp faced were less about a lack of resources and more about a lack of a structured community. Girls got married and pregnant at younger and younger ages not because there was nothing else for them to do in the camp (there are schools), but because their normal protective environment had been shattered. Women were sick with UTI’s not because they didn’t have access to water or bathrooms, but because they didn’t feel safe around the people sharing their restrooms. Women like Fatima bore a heavy burden raising large families not just because they now had fewer possessions, but also because they no longer had a network of extended family helping out with the children…” (1/24).