The Catch-22 For Syrian Refugees In Azraq, Jordan
Standing between the shadow of a liberated Syria and mounting economic pressures in Jordan, Syrian refugees grapple with the question of whether to stay or return home. No clear choice emerges.
Inside the living room of her small home in a haphazardly built-up neighborhood in Southern Azraq, Bashira sits with her young son. She tries, half successfully, to rein him in as he darts around the room, bursting with energy. Like many other Syrian refugees who have settled in this small desert town, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime presents Bashira’s family with the possibility of returning home — but it’s not an opportunity she’s eager to embrace. At the forefront of her concerns is the kind of future a life in Syria would offer her son, one she believes would be bleak given a depleted educational system.
However, after a recent round of legislative reforms in Jordan affecting Syrian workers, Bashira wonders if new circumstances will corner her family into making the decision to leave. A recent announcement by the Jordanian government introduced steep price hikes for work permits for Syrians, a legal requirement for all non-Jordanian workers to participate in the kingdom’s economy. The measure, breaking from a nine-year precedent of heavily subsidized work permits for Syrian workers, is mounting economic pressure on this small town already beset by high levels of poverty. Bashira fears that as much as the return to Syria is rife with a laundry list of unknowns, a continuation of life in Jordan may soon become financially untenable.
“My mind is all over the place,” she says. “My thoughts are torn between whether we can manage to live here, get a work permit, and survive, or whether we should go back to Syria.”
At first glance, Southern Azraq is merely a rest stop where truck drivers traversing the Jordan-Saudi Arabia border gather and rest inside the small restaurants and cafes scattered across the otherwise barren landscape. But as the town has absorbed a sizable Syrian refugee population since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, it has unfolded into more than just a transient stop for passersby. Instead, Azraq has come to offer a haven of long-term stability where Syrian families have settled and built up their lives anew over the span of nearly a decade. It is in one of the small shops where Bashira’s husband works, albeit without a work permit. His situation is common amongst the Syrian refugees in Azraq. Many of the workers staffing and managing the establishments in the area do not have permits, making their employment informal and outside the bounds of the law.
In 2016, Jordan and the European Union, alongside several other international partners, signed the Jordan Compact, a strategic agreement aimed at integrating the Syrian refugee population into the Jordanian economy. One of the highlights of the Compact was Jordan’s commitment to expand legal work opportunities for Syrian refugees. Shortly after the agreement, the number of work permits issued to Syrians rose significantly, from around 4,000 in early 2016 to around 35,000 by January 2017. Subsidized by donor funding, including from the EU, Jordan offered work permits to Syrians at a nominal fee of 10 Jordanian Dinars (14 USD), significantly lower than the standard fees other non-Jordanian groups were subject to at the time. Yet, many workers, especially in isolated towns like Azraq, have continued working without permits. It is easy for them to do so; the rurality of their location tucks them away from the monitoring eye of authorities and consequent enforcement of fines levied on individuals caught in violation of the law.
A shift in policy
Now, the era of fee waivers and subsidized work permits for Syrians is coming to a close, preceded by a trail of funding cuts by the international community and punctuated by the Jordanian Ministry of Labor’s pursuit of “(regulating) the presence of non-Jordanian workers in the Jordanian labor market.“ According to the UNHCR, exemptions to work permit fees and fines must be taken advantage of before June 1st, 2025. After this date, all fees and fines will apply. In order to obtain the right to work inside the Kingdom’s borders, Syrian workers, like the rest of non-Jordanian workers, will be required to pay a fee of 475 JOD (670 USD) and mandatory payments of 113 JOD (160 USD) for two months of a social security subscription. In a statement, the Ministry of Interior pointed to “the weakness of international funding for the Jordanian response plan to the Syrian crisis” as a reason for reduction in support for Syrian refugees residing in the kingdom.
Less obvious in official statements but echoed in the attestations of residents throughout this town is the uptick in inspections and surveillance. Mohammed*, a worker in a tiny dimly lit wholesale store, recounts that prior to the fall of the Assad regime, inspections were a rare occurrence in Azraq. Now, authorities from the Ministry of Labor regularly search the town for workers without permits.
“They were here today, yesterday, and the day before,” he says.
Stores shutter their doors when the authorities arrive, aiming to hide employees working without permits. They resume operations once the authorities leave. With the uptick in monitoring, it is becoming more difficult for workers to slip into the crevices of the informal economy and sustain their livelihoods.
“If I had the money to pay for a work permit, I would have already returned to Syria,” says Mohammed. But his house in his hometown of Homs is destroyed and he has little savings to rely on. Returning to Syria and starting life anew will be difficult. At the same time, he doesn't know how much longer he can continue working in Jordan while on the run from authorities.
“I can’t stay here,” he says. “Why should I risk getting fined or keep being chased from one place to another? Even if I just want to go somewhere nearby, like Zarqa, I have to get a permit. If they catch me, they ask, where's your permit?’”
He says it is his first time facing such a dilemma since his fifteen years residing in Jordan. Two weeks before the June 1st deadline to obtain a work permit, he is still grappling with the question of whether to stay or leave. Neither option is easier than the other. Many of the residents of Azraq are now caught in this same catch-22. He points outside towards the shops lined across the narrow strip of road in front of his store.
“All these stores are run by Syrians,” he says. “And everyone here is in this same position.”
More changes to follow
The new work permit regulations may not be the last blow dealt to Syrian refugees in Jordan. Bashira fears that next, support allocated for Syrian children’s access to public education will also start to chip away. She cites a rumor in the community that evening classes offered to Syrian children in Jordanian schools will soon be cut. Another claim floats that Syrians may have to start paying for enrollment in public school.
While these claims could not be independently verified and have yet to be addressed in an official statement by the government, the rumors are not completely without basis. Indeed, it is in the 2016 Jordan Compact, which once committed Jordan to expanding Syrian access to the Jordanian labor market that also compelled the Kingdom to provide Syrian students with expanded access to the public education system at no cost. Some promises made by the Jordan Compact have already crumbled, meaning more could fall through in the future.
“The future of [Syrian] children is going to be ruined,” laments Bashira, this time with her son grasped firmly between her arms.
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*altered name to protect the identity of the individual.
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