Young in Age, Old at Heart / الصغار الكبار

Refugee children are between the hammer of poverty and the anvil of illiteracy.

"Baraa", a 13 years old Syrian kid, lives in a crumbling hut with his family of 14 members. He wakes up early every morning to pack his bag and tools; his bag that contains chisels, screwsdrivers, and nails instead of pencils, books, and notebooks.

His mom prepares his lunchbox for him, for his return home is not until sunset, and he must eat what she was able to save on food.

"Baraa" is like all the children at the refugee camps in Lebanon. All of them are in the labor market, either in construction, repair workshops or in farming. When I asked "Baraa" about his school, he answered me with a sigh:

"I need money, and my little siblings need food, clothing and shelter."

I felt like this kid is much older than his actual age, many years older.

Do refugee children receive protection?

Despite the legal protection granted to every child either by the international law or by the national legislation of every country that is a party in the International Labour Organization (ILO), Convention No. 182, that provides protection for children from the worst forms of child labor and reflects a global commitment on combating it, alongside combating sexual exploitation, recruitment into armed forces, and more illegal and dangerous businesses that harm the child’s physical and mental health, though reality says otherwise, for there is no protection and no intervention but only by the minimum.

Convention on the Rights of the Child

Article No. 32 in the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the child’s right to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any action that may be harmful to his physical or mental health. And also, by principle, the child is granted legal protection. Most states that are parties in the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention prohibits child labor, except for agricultural work under the supervision of parents.

Role of UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)

According to Lisa Abu Khalid, UNHCR Representative of the UN in Lebanon, 188,000 Syrian children were born in Lebanon between 2011 and 2019, a 10% growth rate for the Syrian refugee community, which is a burden on the UNHCR and the host country. Tania Chabisan, UNICEF Representative in Lebanon, also stressed that child labor is hard to tackle as it often is the only source of livelihood for poor families. The role of UNICEF and civil society organizations, such as Save the Children's Resource Centre in an emergency case, is to only provide educational activities in a crisis, through short-term programs. A report by the Center for Lebanese Studies showed that the number of Syrian students enrolled in public schools has amounted to 61,206 pupils, 60% of whom were in the elementary stage in the morning and evening, with a steady decline in the secondary stage, where only 1% of the students enrolled were in the ninth grade.

A report by the Norwegian council also showed that 78% of those not enrolled in an educational program are because of extreme poverty and the need of their family for their children to work.

According to a report by International Labour Organization (ILO), nearly 100,000 children, including 37,000 Lebanese children, are exploited by industrial workers.

The problem in Lebanon has been exacerbated by the economic crisis, which has increased the poverty rate by 28% of Lebanese people under the poverty line, forcing families to take their children out of schools and into the labor markets to help provide for their families. This deprives them of their basic rights to get an education and destroys their dreams of a better future, not to mention the dire consequences on their physical and mental health and their vulnerability to sexual exploitation and trafficking by outsiders.

Letting the child into the world without a supervisor makes him vulnerable to dealing with different types of people, and he may be lured into abnormal behaviors such as smoking, drug and alcohol abuse, and military recruitment.

The causes of child labor are well known for everyone, the first of which is poverty. There are secondary causes and factors such as the low level of awareness among parents and other hereditary and social factors, but all of these revolve around poverty.

Perhaps the solutions to this phenomenon are well known also, through addressing the cause which is poverty. There are different solutions such as enforcing laws that prohibit child labor, many of which are applicable in most countries of the world, and spreading awareness through media campaigns to highlight the dangers of this phenomenon, which has dangerous consequences on human development and social safety.

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Sources:

1. Convention on the Rights of the Child
2. International Labor Organization Convention No. 182
3. Report of the High Commission for refugees in Lebanon about the numbers of refugee children and their distribution
4. Report of the International Labour Organization about child labor problem for refugees in Lebanon
5. Center for Lebanese Studies, the comprehensive education unit

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