Making Home Away

Hanan and her husband moved to Canada in October 2018 with their children.  He describes some of the practical difficulties of living as a Syrian refugee in Jordan, where they previously lived for five years:

"They (people in Jordan) put pressure on us and had power over us. You could not buy a car and register it under your name, it had to be under a Jordanian citizen’s name, these were the rules.  Some people I knew lost their cars because of that law, when the Jordanian sponsor claimed it was his (the sponsor’s) car. (Because) it is registered under his name, there is nothing to prove to the government that it belongs to the right person.  The government knows about that and they say that this is the law. But here in Canada, it is different and thank God and all the success to this country. If you buy a car or a house, you can register it in your name. Here is the real life, and here the freedoms and rights for people are perfect and I thank Canada for that."

Lack of legal papers and official work permits in Jordan result in difficulty and exploitation for many Syrian refugees, as documented by Open Migration in the case of female farm labourers.