Walaa Kayyal, a researcher living as a Palestinian in Lebanon who was interviewed for this report in October 2022 emphasised the fragility of the funding on which child protection programmes rely in Lebanon:
“Most importantly, if you are talking specifically about child protection services, most of these services are covered by international or local NGOs. So again, they’re not structured. For example, now I work at an international NGO that provides child protection case management, and they provide for the case management. They provide emergency cash assistance and these projects are based on funds. So, for example if UNHCR stopped giving us, we will cut the service. We will not give any more child protection services. In brief, no, we don’t have a structure. There are scattered services through the nongovernmental organization scope, but these are based on funds. So, if the fund is cut, the services are cut. We have some initiatives by UNRWA and the Ministry of Public Health, but these are more broadly into mental health rather than child protection.”
(Source: Walaa Kayyal, interview record, 31 October 2022)
The same source pointed to the causality between the economic crisis in Lebanon and the increase of child labour:
“Since the economic crisis, child labour increased because we have a devaluation of the Lebanese Lira, and the father of the family cannot afford to support the whole family. So Lebanese generally, their social status has dropped because of the devaluation of the currency. However, the poorer became the most poorer, and the majority of people now are under the poverty line. So without being able to quote any figure or any study, I can say that child labour has increased in Lebanon in general. This is because people have to eat, parents cannot afford anything anymore, so they send their children to work. Before the economic crisis we saw child labour in Lebanon but it increased. Inside the camps, UNRWA schools are free of charge. So children can enter and just pay something very negligible in order to enter the UNRWA school. But then some families still decide not to send their children to school so that they come and help them with their own work. So sometimes the father is a painter, and instead of getting another person to help him, he takes his child out of school to help him. Mostly, boys are involved in child labour. You see this inside the camp more than you see it outside the camp also because inside the camp it’s a closed community, they don’t have much interaction with the surrounding around them. In this closed community it is very acceptable for a child, even if they are in school, to help their dad with the work during summer, even if he’s 10 years old or 12 years old. The belief is also that the boys helping their fathers during summer will become more masculine. So, this concept of child labour is very acceptable, and it’s encouraged if the child is working with their father and/or mother.”
(Source: Walaa Kayyal, interview record, 31 October 2022)
UNRWA reported on school dropouts in their Protection Monitoring Report covering the 1st quarter of 2022:
“Strained family incomes were said to continue to push families to send children – often boys – to work, sometimes withdrawing them from school to do so. According to focal points, child labour and school dropouts were the most common issues they saw in quarter one, with child labour a particularly prominent concern in the North, and dropouts the most evident in Saida. […] Reports of child marriage persisted as families continued to struggle economically, with Tyre focal points suggesting the practice was increasing in camps there. However, focal points suggested that cultural practices, including parents’ lack of awareness about the negative impact, also contributed to
this, as well as poverty, reflecting child marriage as a long-term phenomenon in the Palestinian refugee community. Reports also continued of isolated instances of families pressuring children into worked for armed groups, which often pay in dollars, or criminal gangs.”
(Source: UNRWA, “UNRWA Protection Monitoring Report – Quarter 1 (Q1) 2022”, 1 July 2022, p. 4)
The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs reported in April 2022 about child labour is in Palestinian households:
“Child labour is also a phenomenon that is becoming more frequent as households struggle to cope with the worsening economic situation. One in four PRL [Palestinian refugees in Lebanon] households reported children to be working or supporting the household, contributing significantly to children dropping out of school and exposing them to grave physical harm as they risk their lives.
In addition, the risk of child marriage is on the rise, namely for girls. According to the MSNA 2021 data, child marriage rates for PRL revolve around 0.72 per cent, and 1 per cent for girls; although these figures are likely underreported [UN Women, Gender and Social Inclusion Analysis based on MSNA, December 2021 data].”
(Source: OCHA, “Increasing Humanitarian Needs in Lebanon, April 2022”, 14 April 2022, p. 28)
The same source further reported that:
“Finally, 32,000 Palestine children in Lebanon (48 per cent boys and 52 per cent girls) are estimated to be in need of specialized child protection services. Saida and Sour districts reported the highest number of PRL [Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon] children in need with 10,000 children and 6,000 children respectively. This is driven by the deteriorating socioeconomic situation, violence within the home and on the street, and harmful coping mechanisms such as child labour, child marriage or joining armed groups.”
(Source: OCHA, “Increasing Humanitarian Needs in Lebanon, April 2022”, 14 April 2022, pp. 30-31)
In its Protection Monitoring Report for the last quarter of the year 2021, UNRWA reported that:
“More than in other areas, focal points in CLA and NLA felt that children did not report incidents that affected them. While children were said to be most likely to turn to family members, UNRWA staff and NGOs, low reporting was attributed to potential stigma, the lack of trust in the system and no clear directions on how to do so. (p. 8)”
(Source: UNRWA, “UNRWA Protection Monitoring Report – Quarter Four 2021”, 6 April 2022)
In its Protection brief of 2020, UNRWA also pointed out that:
“Child labour and families resorting to negative coping mechanisms are increasing. Five per cent of PRL and four per cent of PRS children are reportedly involved in different forms of child labour, with a rise among Palestine refugee families’ common belief that labour provides more opportunities than education in a context of limited access to the job market. As a result, many children are spending a considerable amount of time on the streets, vulnerable to all kinds of exploitation, and missing out on their education in the process. In November 2018, an estimated 4,500 Palestine refugee children were engaged in different forms of child labour.”
(Source: UNRWA: “Protection brief: Palestine refugees living in Lebanon”, September 2020, p. 3)
A collective of NGOs working with Palestinians in Lebanon made a joint submission to the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review in 2020 in which they stated among others that:
“Violent practices and violations are prevalent on the social and household levels, impacting Palestinian women and children refugees in Lebanon and from Syria, particularly through increased child labor and child marriage used by parents as mechanisms to cope with the economic situation and increasing financial constraints. The application of a child protection system and its related mechanisms is still lacking on the national level generally and in Palestinian
refugee camps, in particular, due to the absence of due process, where eight out of ten Palestinian children suffer from violence. (p. 3)”
(Source : Najdeh Association, Development Action Without Borders (Naba’a), Palestinian Human Rights Organization (PHRO) et al, “UPR 2020: Palestinian Refugee Rights in Lebanon”, July 2020, p. 3)