The Surprising Upside for Female Refugees

In 2014, when ISIS invaded Amira's hometown in eastern Syria, most of her village of 200 people went into hiding. But Amira saw the invasion as her chance to escape. "I told my family I was afraid of the war," says Amira, 30, who, like all of the refugees in this story, asked us to use a pseudonym to protect her safety. "But really it was so much more than that."

She had been married off to her 32-year-old first cousin when she was 17. The age difference made her ill, she says, but in her conservative village, where girls typically married young to men chosen by their families, she had no choice. Shortly after the couple wed, Amira's husband became verbally abusive and controlling, forbidding her from talking to any man who was not a relative. "I had no idea what love or happiness was," she says. "I was in a prison of my own traditions."

Amira and her husband left Syria together shortly after ISIS arrived, setting out on notoriously dangerous, weeks-long journey across the Aegean Sea to Europe. She prayed not only that she would survive but also that her new home in Berlin would offer her true independence.

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