Charities help young Gazans struggling to tie the knot

By Ahmed Badawy

GAZA CITY, Palestine

 Planning to throw his wedding party next week, Muayyad al-Susi, 30, is sorting out his invitations. Not too long ago, he did not imagine he would be financially able to get married before the age of 40.

“I would not be able to marry at this age without the help of a marriage facilitating association,” he said.

Susi, a salesman in a clothing store in Gaza City, said: “After five years of unemployment and being unable to pay for the wedding, I had to resort to the association.”

“The wedding expenses here are too high,” he said. “It may reach more than $15,000. To afford such an amount of money, I will need many years.”

“Thanks to the association, I was able to reduce the expenses and pay it in installments over two years.”

Susi said he was able to get all the wedding supplies on credit for only $2,000 through the association, to be paid back in installments.

He said that he would have had to pay over double that amount if he had bought the supplies himself from the market.

Susi is one of hundreds of young Palestinian men in the Gaza Strip who have recently begun to resort to marriage associations due to widespread poverty in the besieged enclave.

The associations provide financial grants, or wedding necessities at discounted rates, which are paid back in installments.

Harsh economic conditions

Hundreds of young people in Gaza are delaying their marriages due to the harsh economic situation in the strip.

Last May, the World Bank reported that the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip reached 43 percent, the highest in the world, and that about 80 percent of Gaza's population rely on social aid, 40 percent of whom are languishing below the poverty line.

The number of marriages dropped by around 1,500 from the previous year, according to statistics from the Sharia Court Council in the Gaza Strip.

Maysa Azzam said that her fiance was not able to afford to marry her for a year and a half, before finally resorting to one of the marriage associations.

“My husband lost his job during the last war, Israeli aircraft shelled the factory where he worked and our wedding had to be delayed,” she said.

She said that paying the costs of marriage in installments through associations lessens the great burden on young people suffering from the siege, poverty and lack of employment opportunities.

Marriage associations

Adham Baalodji, chairman of the Association of Facilitating Marriage, said that the foundation aims to provide part of the costs of marriage to the most disadvantaged groups in Palestinian society.

In addition to providing financial assistance, he said, the association also provides guidance services to those who are getting married, helping the bride and groom to succeed in their married life and reduce divorce rates.

Certain conditions apply to those seeking grants, such as it being the first marriage and poverty being an obstacle.

Baalodji said that associations such as his were important due to the difficult conditions in the Gaza strip.

“We were surprised while doing field research to find men over 50 who remained unmarried due to poverty,” he said.

Saqr al-Ghoul, director of the National Campaign for Facilitating Marriage in the Gaza Strip, said the campaign provides young couples with most of the supplies for their wedding, such as catered food, invitation cards, wedding halls and clothes, hairdressing and other expenses.

Ghoul said that all these requirements cost around $1,700, and are paid back in installments over a year or longer, according to the applicant’s financial status.

According to the director, the campaign helped around 500 young people make their dreams of marriage a reality.