International Labor Organization and Lebanese child beggars

According to Dr. Nabil Watfa of the International Labour Organization, there are roughly 100,000 children currently working in the country, including those on the streets.

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“The number of children working on the streets is difficult to determine,” said Watfa. “Anyone who gives you a definite number would be fooling you.”

Some of these children are the victims of coercion an organised crime. “Many children are forced to work as beggars, and even prostitutes, by organised gangs, which pay them with cigarettes or drugs,” said Jannot Sanah, a psychological supervisor at the Lebanese Evangelical Institute for Social Work and Development.

The institute is one of very few in Lebanon devoted to the issue of street children and the only one working in cooperation with the social affairs ministry.

According to statistics, the institute sheltered 239 children in 2004 and 172 last year. From the beginning of 2006, the centre has received around 90 children, 60 of whom have chosen to remain at the centre. Sanah attributed the drop to “the security situation and tightening security measures on the Syria-Lebanon border, where many of these children and gangs come from”.

Despite its good work, however, the institute – which is financed primarily through donations – is facing hard times. Promised monies from the social affairs ministry have been several months late, said Sanah, which has resulted in a major funding shortfall.

IRIN. (2006, July). LEBANON: Street children - victims of organised crime. Retrieved April 2011, from Web Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20070214065729/http:/www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54357&SelectRegion=Middle_East