Kenneth Joe Galloway CEO - Knowledge, Growth & Support, Ltd. 1

Syria crisis: Fast facts 13.5 million people in Syria need humanitarian assistance. 4.6 million Syrians are refugees, and 6.6 million are displaced within Syria; half are children. Most Syrian refugees remain in the Middle East, in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt; 10 percent of the refugees have fled to Europe. Children affected by the Syrian conflict are at risk of becoming ill, malnourished, abused, or exploited. Millions have been forced to quit school.

Why are Syrians fleeing their homes? Violence: Since the Syrian civil war began, 320,000 people have been killed, including nearly 12,000 children. About 1.5 million people have been wounded or permanently disabled. Collapsed infrastructure: Within Syria, healthcare, education systems, and other infrastructure have been destroyed; the economy is shattered. Children’s safety: Syrian children — the nation’s hope for a better future — have lost loved ones, suffered injuries, missed years of schooling, and witnessed violence and brutality. Warring parties forcibly recruit children to serve as fighters, human shields, and in support roles, according to the U.S. State Department.

How does the war in Syria affect children? Children are susceptible to malnutrition and diseases brought on by poor sanitation, including diarrheal diseases like cholera. Cold weather increases the risk of pneumonia and other respiratory infections. Many refugee children have to work to support their families. Often they labor in dangerous or demeaning circumstances for little pay. Children are more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation in unfamiliar and overcrowded conditions. Without adequate income to support their families, parents — especially single mothers — often opt to arrange marriage for girls, some as young as 11. Between 2 million and 3 million Syrian children are not attending school.

The latest official data shows that 13% of girls in Syria are married before the age of 18. However, the ongoing conflict and subsequent humanitarian crisis has led to a dramatic increase in child marriages within Syrian refugee communities.

For many of these refugees, married off against their will, the terror has already begun. They are 11 and 13 and 14 years old. Some of them are pregnant. Some are already mothers under the age of 14. Their husbands are 25 or 38 or 40. And there is no escape. Since the start of the refugee crisis, UNICEF reports, as many as "one-third of registered marriages among Syrian refugees in Jordan between January and March 2014 involved girls under 18," with some as young as 11.

Girls married in their early teens and younger face dark futures, according to Girls Not Brides. They are more likely to live in poverty, often are physically and emotionally abused, are at higher risk for sexually transmitted diseases, and are vulnerable to complications during childbirth – some of them fatal. The plight of refugee child brides, which authorities now call a crisis, first came to light in October last year, when 14-year old Fatema Alkasem vanished from a refugee center in the Netherlands along with her husband. She was nine months pregnant at the time.

Question: What should the authorities in countries receiving refuges do when a refuge family arrives where the bride in the marriage has been forced into an underage marriage? Explain your plan for addressing this issue.