Forced by war to abandon their businesses and former lives, Syrian women are creating new opportunities for themselves and their families in the countries where they’ve found refuge. Meet five resilient and ambitious entrepreneurs in Jordan in our new multimedia series, Starting up again: Syrian entrepreneurs in exile.

Local business Janey Appleseed is hiring refugee women to sew children's dresses and quilts

From major cities to remote villages, women and girls worldwide face harassment, violence, discrimination and a lack of equal opportunities. Their lives are threatened, their potential robbed. This is especially – brutally – true for women and girls in the world’s conflict zones. According to International Rescue Committee violence prevention experts, the toughest places to be a woman today are:

Not only do many Afghan girls grow up in remote villages without schools, all girls over the age of twelve are now barred from formal education.

Earlier this year the IRC in Greece hosted cooking workshops for refugee and local women living on the island of Lesvos. Some of the women who took part talked to us about their experience and shared the recipe of the dish they shared with the group. Dimitra shares her recipe for stuffed tomatoes. 

Women and girls fleeing conflict, violence and insecurity are finding unsafe and substandard living conditions as they arrive in Greece, transit through the Balkans and seek refuge and asylum in Europe. The lack of consideration given to women and girls within the crisis response has serious implications for their safety and well-being. Organisations at the front lines of the refugee crisis report that women and children – who have made up 59% of arrivals in Greece since January 2016 – are experiencing serious and varied forms of gender-based violence, including rape and sexual exploitation. The international community has a responsibility to protect all women and girls, regardless of their immigration status, from gender-based violence, abuse and exploitation, and to provide life-saving assistance to those that have been subjected to such harm.

Earlier this year the IRC in Greece hosted cooking workshops for refugee and local women living on the Greek island of Lesvos. Some of the women who took part talked to us about their experience and shared the recipe of the dish they shared with the group. Hafeza shares her recipe for Afghan Bolani.

On their visit to Germany, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall heard from refugee women who have overcome extraordinary hardship to rebuild their lives.