Lebanon's volatile border region seems peaceful enough right now. But these towns and villages house thousands of refugees. The war in Syria is raging just beyond these mountains, and the impact is being felt all across the valley. Now makeshift refugee camps are springing up, many without water or sanitation.
MAN (Translation): What can you do? You just deal with it. God will help.
MAN 2 (Translation): We’ve had to set up everything here. Like, the kitchen is here. What can we do? We thank god for everything good and bad. What can we do?
In this tent, a typical scene - a woman surrounded by small children with no husband in sight - he may be fighting in Syria or in jail there. And if the situation weren't bad enough, I'll soon hear allegations that women are being sexually harassed in return for basic items of aid.
WOMAN (Translation): Some of them want you to satisfy their sexual desires.
I set off to find out more. Further along the valley is the town of Aarsel, with an estimated 13,000 refugees. It's a stronghold of support for the Syrian rebels.
FATIMA CHAHINE, SOCIAL WORKER (Translation): This is the village centre. We still call it a village!
I'm travelling with Fatima Chahine, a social worker. In this male-dominated society, she's a strong advocate for the role of women.
FATIMA CHAHINE (Translation): In this society the woman thinks her rights are just to sit at home and raise her children. So we tell her about her rights, what are her rights in Lebanon, what rights she has, everything.
Fatima wants to show me an unreported consequence of the Syrian conflict - an alarming increase in child brides.
FATIMA CHAHINE (Translation): Rates of early marriages are very high - it’s so high, beyond imagination.
We're here to meet Khadidja.
FATIMA CHAHINE (Translation): What is the hardest problem you faced in marriage?
She was married two months ago at only 15.
KHADIDJA (Translation): I was depending on my parents….I used not to cook - I used to count on my mother to cook, to wash. I did not know how to cook well, but I am learning slowly.
Khadidja's father is imprisoned in Syria and her oldest brother has joined the armed uprising. And now with almost no money to survive on, her family felt they had no choice but to accept an offer of marriage.
REPORTER (Translation): How many children do you want?
KHADIDJA (Translation): He wants twelve, and all boys, he says. He jokes about it, I don’t know. I don’t know how many. It depends.
REPORTER (Translation): And do you want girls or boys?
KHADIDJA (Translation): I’m not in a hurry now, he is. I don’t want to have children now, I’m still young. Maybe when I am older, then I can start a family.
Fatima has seen this situation many times before.
FATIMA CHAHINE (Translation): She says she doesn’t want children but he does. How will they discuss this issue together? She’s surely in a position where she can’t convince him because she’s not as mature or aware as he is. If he wants ten children, she’ll bear them for him. She can’t say, “No I don’t want to”, because she no longer has the ability to debate or to even convince him on medical grounds, or anything.
Fatima says she hopes awareness campaigns reduce the rates of child brides. But for now we want to talk to Khadidja's mother to learn more about the pressure on her to marry-off her daughter.
REPORTER (Translation): Where is the house?
FATIMA CHAHINE (Translation): Further up. Hello!
MOTHER (Translation): Hello, come in.
FATIMA CHAHINE (Translation): How are you? I’m Fatima.
This is the only warm room in the house. Her children huddle around her, trying to stave off the cold.
MOTHER (Translation): I didn’t feel happy at all, even though the groom is good. I just felt depressed. Firstly her father wasn’t present and she didn’t feel the joy of a bride, something was missing. Her brother wasn’t here either, he was with the revolution. I felt her happiness was incomplete and she’s still young, she only knows how to fry some eggs. She used to go to school and come back home.
FATIMA CHAHINE (Translation): I think their financial or economic situation is the main reason. The other reason is fear. They smuggled their daughters out of Syria to avoid them being raped or facing the other things we heard were happening in Syria. To protect them from that in Lebanon, being Syrian refugees who can be exploited they turn to early marriage if they can, if an opportunity arises and Lebanese men propose.
Like many young women, Khadidja dreamed of marriage and her future but now she spends her life watching TV and doing household chores.
KHADIDJA (Translation): It was a dream to make a new home, to move into a new home. I would have loved to wear a dress and to invite all my friends, but here, I didn’t get to invite my friends and see them with me. I would have liked my father and brother to be with me. I wanted to become a teacher for small kids.
REPORTER: Do you think you can still do all of these things?
KHADIDJA (Translation): Not now.
For many women, the pressure continues long after they arrive in Lebanon. In the northern region of Aakar, in this half-built house, I meet another refugee I'll call Aya. She's another example of the war on women. She doesn't want her real name used. Because she nursed injured rebel fighters in Syria, she was attacked by four men from the Assad regime.
AYA (Translation): Then one of them hit me with the butt of his gun on my head, then all I could feel was being beaten, I don’t know how. I came to as I was being raped, rape in all its forms, and all four of them. And then they went and I was left in the place I was in, but my clothes were torn and my body was bruised all over.
Given the strict taboo on women discussing these issues, Aya is making a brave stand by speaking out.
AYA (Translation): When I came here and felt that I was pregnant and there was a baby, I took medicine and aborted it myself. Then after the abortion I came and settled here.
REPORTER (Translation): Why didn’t you ask someone for help?
AYA (Translation): Because I got scared no one would believe me, that this actually happened to me. My friend went through the same and no one believed her so she killed herself.
Aya's story is deeply distressing but common in Syria's brutal civil war where rape has become an instrument of torture. Now she's unsure where to turn for help and says one of her attackers has tracked her down.
AYA (Translation): I saw one of those who hurt me here in Lebanon.
REPORTER (Translation): One of the four?
AYA (Translation): Yes, one of the four. They started threatening me by SMS, “Don’t’ go out of the house. You think you’re safe and want to help people? We told you to stop and we hurt you, but you never stopped.” So I don’t know what they intend to do now.
REPORTER (Translation): Are you scared?
AYA (Translation): After what I have been through, no, I’m not. What more can they do? Kill me? I don’t care.
This is the historic city of Baalbek, in the Bekaa Valley and a rare day of sunshine in Lebanon's harsh winter cold.
MAN (Translation): Would it fit Mariam?
GIRL (Translation): A bit small, isn’t it? It fits Raneen.
These donated clothes will keep these refugee women’s children warm in the cold months ahead. Agencies like these are struggling to provide for the flood of refugees. But for some refugee mothers, even receiving charity has become a risky process. Salwa and Yasmine claim they've been sexually harassed as they sought donations from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Red Cross. Like Aya, they too are prepared to break taboos and speak out.
SALWA (Translation): It’s the first time we have spoken on camera. We find it difficult. In our society…. How can I say it….a girl might not be able to tell her mother or sister about such things, so imagine saying it in front of a camera, and having it shown on TV?
Because the women rely on the donations of food and clothing, they're vulnerable and it puts them, they say, at the mercy of those who distribute the goods.
YASMINE (Translation): Some of them want you to satisfy their sexual desires. The donations aren’t from them, they’re from abroad and we’re entitled to them.
Aid agencies rely on locals to distribute the donations and in Baalbek, the women come to this supermarket to receive the goods. It's run by Samir Hlayhel and his son, Mahmoud. They're men of power and influence. So it's taken me several visits here for the women to feel confident enough to speak out.
HODA (Translation): Specifically they would say, “If you give to us, we will give to you.” You’d be standing at the office door outside, and the old man starts touching you, touching your thighs, your shoulder or grabs your shoulder. I mean you just want to get out of there.
SALWA (Translation): We went there but he started using obscene language with us. “Do you like…” I just can’t say it, I swear. Shame on them to use such language, to say such things to a woman. “How do you like it, in your face or up your bum?” He’d want to touch you, grab you, kiss you before he’d give you the box, but we have our dignity.
I asked the women why they didn't report what was going on.
YASMINE (Translation): Me? Um...Because I feel the Lebanese state...To whom can I complain? To the state? Those people have connections, so if I complain I’ll be blamed and they’ll be left out of it.
REPORTER (Translation): Hello Mahmoud, this is Yaara, I am an Australian journalist…
I put the allegations to Mahmoud Hlayhel, son of Samir.
REPORTER (Translation): Women came to us and complained that you and your father, Samir Hlayhel, are sexually harassing them. Is this true?
MAHMOUD HLAYHEL (Translation): I couldn’t care less what they say, I know who I am and I don’t need people’s testimonies about me.
REPORTER (Translation): They said that you and your father touched them inappropriately and made improper advances to them.
MAHMOUD HLAYHEL (Translation): What you are saying is totally rejected. If you want, you can let them face up and we won’t have a problem.
That is something the women would never be comfortable with. Instead, I turn to the United Nations. They'd given the Hlayhel family aid to distribute. This is the weekly briefing in Beirut. They are hard-pressed to cope with the flood of refugees but do they also know about allegations of sexual harassment?
NINETTE KELLY: That's the best we can do. We're not a law enforcement agency.
Ninette Kelly is a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Lebanon.
REPORTER: Have you heard of instances like this happening in Lebanon?
NINETTE KELLY: We've heard allegations and if we've heard allegations we've gone forward to do the necessary investigation.
Dateline understands the UN stopped working with the Hlayhels after receiving allegations about them, even though the allegations were never investigated. The other NGO involved in this matter is the Red Cross. I wanted to know what they knew of the allegations.
I sought a response from the organisation in Beirut. They've declined our request for an interview but did provide this statement. It says they haven't received reports of harass want but are taking the allegations very seriously. However, they do confirm that aid was channelled through the Hlayhel family last year but currently they have no links with them.
The Red Cross has not confirmed why they no longer deal with the Hlayhel family. This is news to Mahmoud Hlayhel.
REPORTER (Translation): So you are distributing items from the Red Cross?
MAHMOUD HLAYHEL (Translation): From the Red Cross, correct.
REPORTER (Translation): The International Red Cross?
MAHMOUD HLAYHEL (Translation): It’s the committee… just a moment. It’s the International Committee of the Red Cross.
As the war continues in Syria, the Bekaa Valley will become home to many more refugees. Khadidja will try and understand her new life. Aya, who was pack raped, wants to have her body repaired and start her life again.
AYA (Translation): It’s stitching the hymen, from the beginning, which is repairing me as a virgin again, so to speak. This is the most suitable solution, being an Arab girl.
For Yasmine and Salwa, the struggle to maintain their families and their dignity continues.
YASMINE (Translation): It’s because I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of that I say what is in my heart.
SALWA (Translation): Because we would sacrifice anything but our dignity.
ANJALI RAO: You have to admire that sort of determination in such wretched circumstances. Our website has more from countries across the region, including Yaara’s recent award-winning reports looking at life inside Syria and Libya. Go to the website.
Reporter/Camera
YAARA BOU MELHEM
Producer
GEOFF PARISH
VICTORIA STROBL
Editor
MICAH McGOWN
Translations/Subtitling
JOSEPH ABDO
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN