[Amman, Jordan] “It is only about money,” confesses Hanan ‘Ababna while grabbing a large metal fork as she sifts through landmine-infested fields on the Jordan-Syria border.
Hanan comes from a poor family in the northern city of Mafraq, where unemployment has reached a staggering 30 percent and poverty is on the rise.
The community that once thrived on agriculture and trade currently struggles with the consequences of bad state economic policies, depending on handouts and monthly salaries through social aid networks, rather than through created job opportunities in rural areas.
“If it were not for money I would not be putting my life at risk,” says Hanan.
The scorching heat and slapping cold wind of the desert has turned black and rugged her skin and that of many other girls in this frontier area.
Officials behind the project needed to offer generous financial bait to lure individuals to join this risky business. Each worker gets 540 Jordanian dinars (JD), five times more than the minimum wage, as well as health insurance and compensation in case of injury or death.
Hanan used to work at a local factory as a seamstress, earning "100 JD with bonus”
for herself and her three children.
“It is only because I was a fast worker and hence produced more than my colleagues that they gave me JD 100, otherwise I would have earned no more than JD 85,” she says.
Now Hanan can put enough food on the table and provide education for her children.
“I do not care about what happens to me. I am happy here because I can give my children a good life,” she adds.
Hanan joined dozens of other girls from similar economic and social backgrounds to become the first Jordanian all-female de-mining team. Their first mission is to help male counterparts clear the northern borders with Syria of landmines, remnants of tension between the two Arab countries during the 1970s.
The 10.5 million square meters of mine-infested land is the last stretch of a decade-old campaign to cleanse the country of ordinance. The project aims to remove 136,000 mines that nestle along a 104 km-long mine belt, where dozens of villages are located.
The minefields served not only as a natural deterrent to cross country smuggling, but also hampered residents on the Jordanian side from making the most of the fertile land.
On the other side of the border, farmers from Syria are cultivating the land up to its full potential while villagers in Jordan abandoned their land, preferring to join the army to feed their family.
Activists now say the project of de-mining will allow thousands of farmers and 70,000 villagers to utilize their lands after nearly three decades.
Women Praised
Teams of landminers are shuttled to the minefields every morning at five am, where they gear up to flirt with death traps, donning protective clothing and other paraphernalia.
For project coordinator Qasim Simadi, who supervised the training of the women, his new students showed as much courage and perseverance as men, if not more.
“I saw they wanted to prove themselves. They would wear the heavy clothes and walk towards the landmines without fear. I was impressed,” says Simadi, who insists women are not treated any differently to men.
“This is a job and they have to do it well, otherwise it will be their lives at risk,” he says, noting that the 40 women who applied for the job were reduced to the current 24-member team.
“Not any woman can become a de-miner. They have to be tough in their heads before their bodies,” he claims.
According to Stephen Bryant, NPA program manager in Jordan, gender equality and women’s empowerment are some of the pillars of NPA’s work.
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Ranging from university graduates to farmers and homemakers, the female de-miners have chosen this career line with NPA looking for employment, financial empowerment or non-traditional occupation.
The desert kingdom, which was involved in several wars with Israel since 1948, launched a project to clear all existing minefields following the signing of the Wadi Araba peace treaty with Israel in 1994. Officials set their sights on 2012 to remove the last mines in 93 minefields in line with Ottawa Mine Ban treaty.
Lack of experience, and probably fear of negative publicity, pushed officials at the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), the organization funding the project, to limit the work of women to surveying the land. Handling of landmines will be at a later stage when they gain experience, says Lina Gazi, a public relations officer at the NPA.
But that job is no less risky, say team members.
Officials at the NPA, many of whom are former army generals, point out that not all minefields have maps, leaving de-miners very vulnerable.
The $10-million project involves more than 100 mine specialists, including members of the local community, with the support of the international community, including Australia, Canada, the European Commission, Germany, Japan and Norway.