A baby boom is occurring in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan which houses many Syrian refugees. According to NPR, “The crude birth rate in the camp far exceeds that of both Jordan (24.5) and pre-war Syria (23). And, reports show, many of those births are the product of very young marriages.”
“Some women may feel compelled to compensate for the lives of relatives lost in the war,” says Dr. Valeria Cetorelli, a demographer with the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. “This is very common here,” says Lina Hamidi, a nurse with the International Medical Corps (IMC). “The wife wants to take a rest from pregnancy, and the husband says, ‘No. We’ve lost so many friends and family. We have to replace this number.'”
