Gender Equality and Post Crisis Transformation: Case of Damascus City

Abstract

Urbanization spurs several social issues like inequalities, exclusion, and segregation. Tacked with a humanitarian crisis, societies face even more problems. Additionally, discriminatory laws and social norms have led women to suffer disproportionately in cities. As the Syrian crisis enters its tenth year, the aftermath is worse for women, girls, and millions of people inside the country and refugees around the world. Hence, this research was made to understand the current urban challenges facing the social conditions of Syrian women living in Damascus, and develop a set of guidelines to foster the integration of women’s needs and challenges in future urban policies. The study was initialized with the interpretation of the social sustainability concept. A framework was created and later used in the analysis of the qualitative data. Furthermore, the interviews were made to identify urban issues and their effect on women. Followed by a survey, to have a better comprehension of how the interview results can reflect on a bigger population. Moreover, all the data was examined under a gender lens to highlight the existing disadvantages of women and provide a better gender-sensitive result. According to the finding of the study, enhancing the outskirt is essential as women living in the outskirts endure more in terms of transportation, services, and quality of the urban settings. Also, the quality of schools and the availability of day-cares should be enhanced as they hinder married women from accessing job opportunities. Lastly, it is important to adopt new strategies to reinforce the sense of belonging of younger women; which tend to suffer from a lack of attachment to their living places. The result outlines a guide to socially sustainable urban policies and post-crisis transformation that advocates gender equality in the context of Damascus city.