Iraqi women who fled to Jordan in fear of ISIS find work in fashion

AMMAN -- In a Jordanian church, Sarah Nael sews a shirt for a project that has provided scores of women who fled the violence carried out by the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) in neighbouring Iraq with the skills to earn a living.

Many of the women escaped the extreme violence carried out by ISIS elements when the group declared its self-styled "caliphate" in swathes of Iraq and Syria.

They ended up in Jordan -- where they found themselves without work.

"Life here is very, very difficult -- if we don't work, we can't live," said Nael, a 25-year-old Christian from the northern Iraqi town of Qaraqosh, who joined the Rafedin sewing project two years ago.

Started by Italian priest Mario Cornioli in 2016, along with Italian designers and tailors, the programme is based at St. Joseph Catholic church in Amman.

It turns out dresses, jackets, belts and ties that are sold in Amman and Italy.

For refugees, many of whom do not have work permits, the project provides them with a way to supplement handouts from the United Nations (UN).

"It's a safe place," said Nael, who has been taught to create clothes from cloth and leather, while her brother helps in the church's kitchen.

Help, with dignity

According to a 2018 report issued by Endeavor Jordan, significant challenges stand in the way of increasing women's participation in Jordan's business sector.

Challenges specific to female entrepreneurs continue to limit their involvement in the entrepreneurial economy, even though the number of females in Jordan in 2017 reached 4.7 million, or 47.1% of the population.

"Only one fourth of incubated entrepreneurs are females," the report said.

A number of refugee women have turned to home-based catering businesses in order to make a living, though competition for work has been fierce.

More than 120 women have so far benefited from Rafedin.

"We try to help them with dignity," said Cornioli, who runs the Habibi Valtiberina Association, an Italian charity in Jordan. "A lot are the only ones working in their families."

On the tables in the church building, colourful rolls of cloth lie ready for cutting.

Cornioli said he hopes the Rafedin fashion label -- meaning "two rivers", the historical term for Iraq between the Euphrates and Tigris -- will become widely recognisable.

The aim is to make the project "self-sustaining" to provide more training to women in need.

ISIS was forced out of the territory it held in Iraq in late 2017 by an international coalition.

But many of the refugees in Jordan are still too fearful to go back. Many are still waiting for their asylum applications to other countries to be processed.

"This project allowed them to do something and to survive in this period," Cornioli said. "They are just waiting to leave."

'Opportunity to learn'

Nael and her family returned home to Iraq after ISIS was defeated in 2017, but they left again after being subjected to anonymous threats, and eventually sought safety in Amman.

Their applications for asylum in Australia have been rejected.

"My father is old, and my mother has cancer," she said but added that going back to Iraq was out of the question. "We have nothing left there to return to."

Diana Nabil, 29, worked as an accountant in Iraq before fleeing to Jordan in 2017 with her parents and aunt, in the hope of joining her sister in Australia.

During her wait, she studied how to sew fabric and leather.

"Some of our relatives help us financially, and sometimes the UN helps us a bit," Nabil said. "With my work here, we are managing."

Cornioli said the project offers "the opportunity to learn something", pointing to "success stories" of some of the women who have since left Jordan, and are now working in Australia, Canada and the United States.

Wael Suleiman, director of the Catholic aid agency Caritas in Jordan, estimated the country hosts as many as 13,000 Iraqi Christian refugees.

"They hope to obtain asylum and leave to a third country, but in light of what is going on in the world now, the doors seem to be closed to them," Suleiman said.

"They are afraid of the future, and no one can blame them for that."