The BBC has a series of short reports from Iraqi refugees about their lives in exile and, sometimes, the events that precipitated their flight. Heartbreaking, every single one. This one about a woman named Fatima [1] is just one example of the insanity.
Fatima is a single woman working as a hairdresser in Damascus. She fled Baghdad three years ago after armed militants attacked the salon where she worked. … They had also threatened to attack the building where she lived with several other women. The militiamen disapprove of women living alone.
… Every six months she has to leave Syria to renew her tourist visa. She hires a taxi to take her to the border. “One taxi driver wanted to charge me 25,000 Syrian Lira (about US $480) for the journey. I said that was too much. He said that I must be making lots of money, that as an Iraqi woman in Syria, I must be working in a nightclub.”
… “I want to be independent. I don’t want to be judged badly; I don’t want to be humiliated by anything. I just want to feel settled and to know I can survive.”
It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.