Early marriage is a very important issue, especially in our beloved country, where there are still many families that give away their daughters for marriage at a very young age. Reasons that drive these families to do such a thing include customs and traditions, as well as socio-economic reasons.

Therefore, SSSD, in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), implemented a campaign entitled “A Child is Raising Another”, as part of the GBV programme at Al-Hosn Community Center in Al-Hosn, Homs. The aim of this campaign was to stop the spreading of such a dangerous phenomenon.

Target groups included women, men, and adolescent boys and girls from both the local and internally displaced communities, as well as returnees.

The campaign included the active participation of adolescents of the Child Protection Club, who presented silent expressive plays in hopes of raising awareness of the negative effects of early marriage. This phenomenon is actually regarded as a form of violence against girls, due to the burdens and responsibilities they are forced to carry at an age where they are expected to play and learn, as they are neither psychologically nor physically capable of carrying such burdens and responsibilities.

Attendees reacted positively during the campaign, emphasizing the important principles that were presented. Furthermore, one of the adolescent girls said at the end of the campaign: “Our body is still too fragile to carry such responsibilities… “

One of the fathers also added: “It is unacceptable to give our children away for marriage at a young age! In my opinion, the right age for marriage is 25 years for women and 30 for men. It is just sad and wrong for a child to marry another, not to mention a child actually having to raise another!”

With the aim to help women and develop their abilities in the sewing profession to enable them to enter the labor market and start their own business, the Syrian Society for Social Development (SSSD) team, in cooperation with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), carried out a vocational training in sewing within both the Vocational Training(VT) and Gender-based Violence (GBV) Programmes at Aman Center in Talkalakh, Homs.

The training targeted women from both local and internally displaced communities, and was implemented in response to these women’s demand due to the lack of sewing workshops in the region, as well as the high prices of ready-mades.

During the training, the women learned the basics of sewing and how to tailor clothes. Also, they learnt how to use sewing machines, in addition to the methods of sketching many types of clothing and executing the latter on small pieces of cloth.

The training concluded with the distribution of cloth to all participants so that they could detail their own clothes.

All participating women interacted with the training, whereby one of them said: "Ever since I was a young girl, I just loved detailing clothes to my dolls. My dream was to study arts in order to learn the techniques of sewing, but my father couldn’t afford registering me in one of these classes… Luckily, I achieved my dream thanks to SSSD!”

Another participant said: "I had a sewing machine for a very long time, and I only used it to make clothes for my kids. Now, I can expand my work and make money out of it to support my family!”