Iraqi children attend karate class at the Collateral Repair Project’s community centre in Hashemi Shamali (Photo courtesy of Sasha Crow)

AMMAN — The contrast in demeanour between Abu Sufyan and his teenage son could not have been more different.

The family of five will soon travel to the US where they will be resettled after fleeing their native Iraq two years ago.

While Abu Sufyan was pensive, saying, “I am not expecting anything, we are heading towards an unknown future,” his son’s feelings vacillated between “surreal” and “awesome”.

The only time Abu Sufyan’s eyes darkened and his voice dropped low was when he spoke of his family’s financial difficulties during the past two years.

A survey conducted by Norwegian research institute Fafo in 2007 said that close to 70 per cent of the Iraqi population in Jordan were of working age (more than 15 years old, and the number is expected to have increased since then.

Iraqi guests are not permitted to work in Jordan. For those who do not receive cash assistance from the UN or other NGOs, the situation becomes dire when their life savings are depleted or remittances from families cease.

Employment is difficult to secure they say — especially now with competition from the Syrians — and has to be clandestine.

For Dilba, a teacher from Baghdad, being unemployed is particularly frustrating.

She sometimes wonders why her life for the past eight years has been reduced to “just eating and drinking”.

The 45-year-old regrets the fact that her older brother has been unable to get married because of their uncertain future. As for herself, she does not dare to think of marriage when her life is in limbo.

Father-of-three Abu Omar, who fled Iraq in 2005, feels “paralysed” and “stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea”.

Many fathers like Abu Omar say they feel emasculated for not being able to provide for their families and these feelings of helplessness and self-blame strain relationships.

The Iraqis interviewed by The Jordan Times were given pseudonyms at their request.

Nathan Hodson noted in his research paper that was published by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 2007 that the first wave of Iraqis who arrived in Jordan following the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 were the elite who brought their wealth with them.

However, as the violence in Iraq continued, those from more modest backgrounds began to stream into Jordan.

The consequence of this exodus from Iraq saw rent and other living costs in Jordan skyrocket. As an NGO worker observed, the war in Iraq has had a ripple effect in Jordan and the “innocent victims of wars and conflicts include the resident population”.

Abu Sufyan and his family can be considered fortunate; not only is their waiting period for resettlement much shorter than most other Iraqis interviewed by The Jordan Times, their nuclear family is intact, possibly due to the young age of the children.

Twenty-seven-year-old Adel left Baghdad in 2007.

After spending four years in the Syrian capital Damascus, he had to flee to Amman in 2011 as the conflict in Syria intensified. With his mother and sister in the US, Adel says: “To be honest, I hate holidays because I don’t have anyone to visit. I just stay at home, browse the Internet and watch TV.”

The number of Iraqis in Jordan was estimated at 451,009 in January 2012, with 32,200 of them registered as refugees at the UNHCR and receiving assistance.

However, the number of Iraqi beneficiaries of the UNHCR-facilitated resettlement programme was 20,000 in 2011.

As time passes, the Iraqis who are still waiting to be resettled fear that they will be forgotten. The UNHCR’s budget for Iraq in 2013 has been cut to $146 million from $190.5 million, and it will be further revised to cover additional needs related to the Syrian crisis.

While the US might be seen as the land of opportunity for many, Abu Sufyan is mindful of the various challenges awaiting him.

He is “scared of the future” in a country where he does not know many people or speak the language.

But if there is one thing he can do, it is to find employment.

While his sponsor will help him get on his feet, Abu Sufyan says, “I will depend on myself. Of course I am going to need help in the beginning, but I will avoid asking people for help. I don’t like to sit still. I would like to get a job and feed my family.”

Perhaps Abu Sufyan’s determination was cemented after his cultural orientation organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Daryl Morrissey, an emergency response project manager at the IOM, explained that a lot of effort has been put into designing the resettlement orientation programme, whereby participants could come to their own conclusions on what life in their new country of residence will be like.

“We try to give them a very realistic perspective. We let them know how difficult it is to get jobs; even if they have professional qualifications these may not be accepted in the US and it may take them several years to be recertified, so that means they may have to take entry-level jobs.”

Like most fathers, Abu Sufyan has high hopes for his children and a decade after the US-led invasion of Iraq, he permits himself to talk about his children’s dreams: “Sufyan wants to be a psychiatrist; Huda would like to be teacher; Noor would like to be a doctor.”

But what does his first-born teenager really want to be? “A professional karateka [karate practitioner],” he answered cheekily.

SOURCE: JORDAN TIMES