Female refugees arriving in Canada from Syria desperately need educating about their rights, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Syria’s second-largest city told a medical conference in Vancouver on Tuesday.
Refugees from rural areas of Syria — who make up the largest portion of families sponsored by the Canadian government — have no knowledge of contraception, sex education or hospital births, said Dr. Vanig Garabedian, former head of a maternity hospital in Aleppo, which was destroyed by rocket fire. He arrived in Toronto last December with his wife and three daughters, all privately sponsored refugees.
“Women think their only role in life is childbearing and raising them and that their role ends at menopause,” said Garabedian. “After that, they do not exist.”
He told the opening afternoon of a national conference for the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada that doctors need to be aware of the vast differences between urban and rural newcomers from Syria. Because government policy there concentrated on development in cities including Damascus and Aleppo, women in agricultural regions have 10 children on average and attend school only until Grade 6, while city dwellers typically have four children and a high school education.
That means Canadian doctors should be prepared to have husbands attend consultations with their wives and — at least initially — allow men to make the decisions, Garabedian advises. Also, ease newcomers into Canadian life and equal rights. Never tell an unmarried woman she is pregnant in front of others, he suggests, and if asked by a family to determine whether a daughter is a virgin, conclude that she is. To do otherwise could put her at risk of an honour killing.
“They need some support psychologically and from the community. We should help them to change, but we can’t expect them to change spontaneously. I believe Canadians can do that, but we need to understand their culture,” Garabedian said.
Dr. Faysal El Kak, an obstetrician-gynecologist practising in Beirut, Lebanon, offered disturbing statistics on refugee health.
Women and children dominate the refugee population, making up more than 60 per cent of the four million Syrians now living outside the chaotic state. Birthrates among the displaced have risen compared to before the war, for several reasons including fear that husbands will take another wife if they don’t keep producing children, to compensate for children lost in their flight or to take advantage of the relatively superior medical care at U.N. refugee camps, he said.
In Turkey, where most refugees are living, 55 per cent of new mothers reported depression or another psychological condition, said El Kak. More than half of all female refugees in Lebanon say they never feel safe and 41 per cent have considered suicide.
The number of child brides is also on the rise among the displaced as parents seek to “protect” young girls from rampant sexual violence by marrying them off early to older men.
The conference runs until Friday and has attracted more than 700 experts in women’s reproductive health including obstetricians, gynecologists, family doctors, nurses and midwives.
