Born and buried without names in Jordan

Her pale face and her piercing looks seared themselves into my mind.

These people are Jordanian citizens. Many of them have family registration cards, meaning they are long-standing Jordanians.

But these people appear as suddenly as they disappear.

Camping in the capital

They show up for a day or two, in strange-looking tents, and live between us - yet we know little about them.

I was led to their dwellings by sheer coincidence. I became curious to later discover more about this community. I visited them again, for a different motive; I thought they were of the Nawar people, but I found out that they are a different people. They are not Arabs.

Unlike the vast majority of Jordanians who speak Arabic, the people of this small community speak to each other in a Turkish dialect. Throughout the region they are known as Turkmen.

The community lives in the heart of the city, though, for all intents and purposes, they are on the margins of the city - if not completely outside of it. They are expelled from the city's "mercy", if it ever had any.

Harsh existence

I visited them for the first time in their dwellings on the outskirts of Amman, near the suburb of Sahab, with a guide who knows them well.

Wardeh's hair flowed freely; she did not cover her head. She said she was suffering from insomnia, and could not sleep until the dawn call to prayer. Her sister Monica smokes four packets of cigarettes a day and does not eat much.

Their father, Abu Hani, has no idea his daughter smokes so much.

Abu Hani says that his daughter had married years ago, but that her husband left her before she gave birth to her first son. When she gave birth, the father's family came and kidnapped the child. Since then, Monica has been desperate to see her son.

Unknown to authorities

Many people in the community are undocumented by the government, and so one can only guess how many Turkmen live in Jordan.

What is certain is that, without ID cards, they are some of the country's poorest, most discriminated against and most vulnerable residents.

Boys and girls in the community marry as children, sometimes before they reach 15.

Boys and girls in the community marry as children, sometimes before they reach 15.

Without documentation, their marriages go unregistered - which makes it easy for the men to leave their wives, marry other women, or to snatch away their children.

To limit the chances of this happening, fathers of divorced women sometimes register their grandchildren as their own offspring. 

When they die, those without IDs are often buried under the name of another family member, whose documents they "borrow" for the ceremony and legal proceedings.

Although the Turkmen have two names, one for the family and one for strangers, in the eyes of the state and many in the city, they remain nameless and unknown.

Wadeh says she yearns for a permanent home and an identity card. This would allow her to live like other citizens in Amman - with a home, running water, electricity, access to school and perhaps even a job. 

Moving on

On my second visit, Wardeh wore a headscarf. She was reciting with difficulty from the opening sura of the Quran and needed some help to finish it. Her enthusiasm for the religion seemed to be in the manner of someone freshly converted to Islam.

She had started praying for the first time in her life, thanks to a girlfriend who was teaching her about the pillars of the faith - even though Wardeh was way past her 20s and is a mother of two.

None of the ten members of her family can read or write.

They make a living collecting and selling junk and scrap metal, though what they make is barely enough to support them. It is possible to see men and youths from their community roaming the streets of Amman, selling leather coats, rugs, cameras and binoculars.

Women and children from their community also often beg, even though this is frowned upon among them. Most are without jobs and their children can't attend school. The only time they are likely to enter a government institution is if they are arrested for being "homeless".

But they do have homes, although their bare and simple dwellings exist between palaces, villas and apartment blocks. They can be uprooted at any time if a Jordanian neighbour makes a complaint against them.

If this happens, the bulldozers move in, flattening their makeshift homes and forcing residents onto the streets. Life will start again. They will find a new patch of wasteland in another part of the city, gather some straw, pieces of cardboard, and a unfold their tarpaulins, and build a new home in Amman. 

This article is an edited translation from our Arabic edition.