When the first “Martyrs’ Wives” residence opened in Ramtha, Jordan, in 2012, local residents and Islamic charities embraced the Syrian refugee widows and families who lost husbands fighting the Assad government. About a dozen of these buildings have sprung up near the Syrian border, a testament to the almost 200,000 lives lost in the conflict.
But instead of being honored guests, the survivors of these observant Muslim men are increasingly seen as an unwelcome burden. The costs of helping refugees is straining the economies of the countries that neighbor Syria. And yesterday’s “freedom fighters” are now seen in a more complicated way. The more militant religious factions that many of the husbands fought with are considered potentially dangerous for Jordan and for many of the Gulf nations supporting Islamic charities.
Tanya Habjouqa, a Jordanian-born and Texas-raised photographer, has been documenting the lives of several of these women and their families for the last two years. Along with the reporter Suha Maayeh, she has gained their trust, obtaining a rare, intimate view of these women — who cover themselves totally except for their eyes the few times they venture outside.
“They can’t leave, they can’t show their faces and they can’t show their bodies,” Ms. Habjouqa said. “These are women that you rarely gain access to but it was so hard to tell their stories visually. It took a lot of banging my head against the wall to figure out what would make them feel safe.”
The women are “extremely vulnerable,” she said, because the conflict in which their husbands died is no longer considered a revolution but a complex civil war with sectarian and religious overtones.
Now the widows rarely go out except to the market, because they fear being preyed upon by local men. Their daughters quit going to school at age 10 or 11 and spend their days sitting at home with little to do. One teenager told Ms Habjouqa that she spent her days “looking at the rug and counting ants.”
Unable to work, the women live in poverty and are completely reliant on the Islamic charities that run the buildings. There is a strict sundown curfew, and rules for the female residents prohibit high heels, plucking eyebrows and even chewing gum.
Some of the widows chafe under the rules enforced by the Islamic charities, while others accept them as appropriate for their religious beliefs in order to protect their modesty.
Almost all of the women would not allow Ms. Habjouqa to photograph their faces, although some agreed that girls younger than 10 could show their faces. Most said that was for religious reasons, but some also did not want the charities that run the buildings to know they had allowed journalists inside.
Ms. Habjouqa befriended several of the widows, but had to operate under severe restrictions. In deference to her subjects’ safety concerns, Ms. Habjouqa is using only their first initials in her story.
The women are different from their chronicler, who is married to a Palestinian lawyer, has two small children and divides her time between Israel and Jordan. Ms. Habjouqa describes herself as much more liberal than her subjects, but adds that they often surprised her.
“These women are some of the most sexually frank of any women that I have ever encountered in my life,” she said, “and they are quite dark and funny.”
They are also practical and understand the dangers of their situation. It is common for foreign donors to come by and offer their assistance — and then inquire if they have any teenage daughters available for marriage. While none of the widows have allowed daughters under 15 to be wed, they know that marriage may be the only way out of their current impoverished and vulnerable circumstances. Actually, the occasional small wedding party supplies the only social distraction for these women, Ms. Habjouqa said, with the most common gifts being lingerie or the occasional hair-removal device.
In September, one of her teenage subjects who had sworn that she would marry for love agreed to become the second wife of a well-off Saudi. She told Ms. Habjouqa that she had “no other choice but dying slowly in the apartment.”
Ms. Habjouqa titled the project “Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots” after an Arab proverb that she says is not as hopeful as it may sound.
“It is much darker,” she said. “The implication is that tomorrow never comes.”
View the slideshow here.
Ms. Habjouqa was featured on Lens earlier this year with her project “Palestinian Pleasures”. She is a founding member of Rawiya — a collective of Arab women photographers.
Follow @thabjouqa, @JamesEstrin and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.
