In a suburb of Beirut, Caritas Lebanon hosts a women’s shelter, one of three across the country, providing a safe house and a new start for countless women. Women fleeing war, domestic violence, oppression and poverty. Women with nowhere else to go. Many are Syrian refugees and are without documents so they literally have no options.
Here at the shelter they find comfort. Of course, they receive the basics like food and healthcare for them and their children. But just as importantly they receive protection and support. Protection in a place they can feel safe and supported in carving out a way forward. The Caritas team at the shelter are experienced in dealing with the complex issues that these women can face. They provide important psychosocial support, life skills and livelihood training, legal assistance and case management.
Behind gated walls and with manned security, the shelter provides a safety for the women and their children that many have not experienced in years. The children can play freely in the beautiful grounds while their mothers attend training courses, psychology sessions or meetings with staff regarding their cases.
Noor (pseudonym used) at the women's shelter in Beirut. Photo: Nicole Chehine/Caritas Australia
Noor* is one of these women. She and her young daughter have been in the safe house for one and a half months since she fled her violent husband. She is pregnant and fled for fear that the beatings would cause her to miscarry.
She fled Syria in 2016 with her brother after her parents were killed in the war. After about one year in Lebanon living with her brother, a neighbour arranged her marriage. The abuse started immediately and Noor was treated like a domestic worker and, in her words, ‘worked to the bone’. Living with her husband’s family she was expected to wait on them all and do as she was told. He was verbally and physically abusive as was his family. When Noor became pregnant she thought the beatings would stop but they intensified, and then even further after she gave birth, to the point that she feared for her life.
Noor’s husband and his family constantly taunted her with threats of taking her young daughter from her. There were also threats to harm her daughter and her brother.  Her husband even started to show violent behaviour towards her daughter.
A friend told Noor about Caritas and she visited a local centre where she met with a social worker. Now pregnant again, she knew she had to escape her husband and his family, not only for her sake but for the safety and well-being of her daughter and her unborn child.
Now in the safe house, for the first time in many years she feels safe. Her future is still uncertain, but she now feels stronger as she has support and doesn’t feel so alone. Noor tell us she now feels like she can make a future for her and her children.
For now and for the foreseeable future, the safe house is Noor’s home.
The situation in Lebanon is becoming increasingly difficult, for the Lebanese and for the millions of Syrian refugees in the country. Your support can ensure that programs like these continue, please give generously.Â
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*Pseudonym used
A garden at the safe house. Photo: Nicole Chehine/Caritas Australia
