Daughters, sisters & moms may join growing army of recruits tackling "Israel`s" evil cluster-bombs

Source: Daily Star, 25-1-2007
TYRE: "I don`t care who they are - Sunni, Shiite, Christian, man or woman - I want the best," exclaims Goran Mansson, manager of the Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SRSA), one of the groups tasked with the massive job of ridding South Lebanon of deadly cluster bombs. Mansson is explaining his rationale behind a groundbreaking decision to recruit an all-female battle-area clearance (BAC) team for the SRSA`s Lebanon operations. BAC work is grueling and dangerous, requiring the painstaking search, on hands and knees, for identified cluster-strike areas while weighed down in protective clothing. It also requires constant alertness.
In the race to dispose of an estimated 1 million unexploded cluster bombs - many dropped by "Israel" in the final days of last summer`s conflict - by December 2007, commercial companies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the SRSA are offering temporary employment opportunities in an impoverished region where there are few jobs to be had.
Salaries for BAC work start at around $700 per month - triple the amount most Lebanese take home working service jobs in and around Tyre.
The SRSA currently employs 66 local staff members alongside 11 foreign employees. It has two emergency contingents and four BAC teams assigned by the Tyre-based UN Mine Action Coordination Center, tasked with various strike areas in the South.
But while a few women have been hired as BAC team medics by NGOs like Norwegian People`s Aid, actual BAC fieldwork has remained an all-male domain - until now.
While Mansson talks in his cramped second-floor office on the outskirts of Tyre, seven female candidates - most in their mid-20s and dressed in jeans and sneakers, with four donning hijabs - crowd the lecture room below. They take diligent notes on instructor Robert Eriksson`s mathematical explanation about the detonation, blast and fragmentation effects of unexploded ordnance.
"In Sweden, equality between males and females is very important," says Mansson, who was a police detective before he arrived in Lebanon. "When I took the decision to hire women, everyone was like: `You`re crazy, you can`t do that - nobody will apply for a job,`" he recalls. "I told the guys: `Tell all your friends. Spread the word.` And they said: `No way, no one is coming.`
"But when we came back to the office I think there were 30 women standing outside."
The challenges for female recruits are many.
In a society where tradition and family are central, relatives are concerned with the dangerous nature of the task. As Eriksson explains: "We will have some obstacles due to culture. Our first obstacle is getting the women`s [families] to let them go to the interview. And that`s not actually the big problem. It`s when they get the job. I don`t think every family counted on this. We`ve lost a couple like that."
"We might have problems where the guys don`t have any respect for them," Mansson says. "So we`ve told the girls: `You need to earn the respect. You have to work to earn the respect.` And I told the guys: `You respect them like you treat your sisters, your mothers, or your wife.`" Eriksson, an emergency and mechanical team leader out in the field, predicts another stumbling block for the women working with protective helmets and vests.
"It`s not comfortable. The gear weighs about 5 or 6 kilos. A helmet weighs about 2 or 3 kilos and there is a lot of weight on the head," he says.
Fellow instructor Mathias Eriksson adds: "We already had a lot of problems with the guys in the beginning getting used to it."
However, by the fourth day of training, both Robert and Mathias Eriksson have nothing but praise for the women`s performance so far.
"The girls are taking a lot of notes and the guys who are being trained are not doing anything," Matthias says. "I expect the guys to have a little bit of a rough time."
Robert nods. "We have noticed a bit of difference with the guys - now they are on their toes," he says. "I think the male staff will see that these girls will perform as well as or even better thanmen."
"I think it`s better if the women work on a team together, so they get support from each other," Mansson says, explaining one of the motivations for the female-recruitment drive. "They may even be slower, but I think they may be more careful than the men. That`s my thinking. They guys are very good, but sometimes I think females are more careful." After a pause, he adds with a chuckle, "to generalize."
In their half-hour break before trying out their protective clothing, the women gather to talk about why they are here.
Manal Ezzedine, a 24-year-old with long dark hair tucked beneath an SRSA baseball cap, is pursuing her masters` degree in journalism. Like all the women present, she says she is at the SRSA for the salary and "a new experience." She lives with her family in Borj Rahal.
"My mother is angry about this job," she says, "and I`m trying to make her accept, but my big brother accepts completely. And I like it.
"After three days of being here I like this job very much."
Most of the women have reluctant family members.
Another 24-year-old from Borj Rahal, Hanaa Krayani, recalls how she stayed in her village throughout the bombing last summer. Her fiance, whom she plans to marry in a year, is concerned about the dangers involved in the SRSA job.
Twenty-four-year-old Fatima Hamadi`s family in Qana worries as she leaves each morning and hails a service taxi to the SRSA headquarters.
And Zeinab Aturi, a pretty young woman in her mid-20s from Bint Jbeil says: "There`s no obstacle to me doing this job beside the danger."
Rahil Komrani, a 35-year-old former nurse at Tyre`s Hiram Hospital, sums up the women`s motivations best: "It`s not just that we have an interest in money - okay, that`s good - but we also have an interest in new training, in a new job."
To their detractors, Ezzedine smiles and says: "There is no difference between the boys and girls. Some people make fun of us, but I don`t care what they say. I want to do this."
With the women nearly halfway through their BAC training, Mansson and the Erikssons caution that too much media attention could unfairly turn the pressure up.
"We don`t want the girls to have more stress than this," Mansson says. "The media are going to watch them like hawks. Talk is easy. To show results is not. As I said to the guys," he says, "this is either going to be a success or a failure. There is nothing in between."