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Niños refugiados sirios en el trabajo... y en escena
La pobreza extrema obliga a muchas familias de refugiados sirios a enviar a sus hijos a trabajar. En Líbano, que alberga a más de un millón de refugiados provenientes de Siria, niños trabajadores y niños que fueron rescatados del trabajo infantil pusieron en escena una representación teatral y musical para celebrar el Día mundial contra el trabajo infantil el 12 de junio.
Syrian refugee and Lebanese children stage performance to say no to child labour
The ILO partnered with Lebanon’s Ministry of Labour and the Lebanese non-governmental Beyond organisation to launch the dramatic production by Syrian and Lebanese children working in hazardous types of child labour in Lebanon. The children’s names have been changed to protect their identity.
Abject poverty is forcing many Syrian refugee families to send their children to work. In Lebanon, host to over a million refugees from Syria, current and former child labourers held a musical and theatrical performance to mark World Day against Child Labour on June 12.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
More than a million Syrian refugees have arrived in Lebanon since violence broke out in their country in 2011, settling in squalid tented camps. A large proportion of refugees – some estimates say 50 per cent – are children.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
Work in host country Lebanon is scarce for refugees fleeing violence in Syria. Many of the refugees live in desperate poverty, surviving on hand-outs and help from international agencies and NGOs. Many refugees send their children out to work for meagre wages to make ends meet.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
Although child labour is illegal in Lebanon, there are an estimated 180,000 to 300,000 child workers in the country, many of them Syrian refugees. Some of the worst forms of child labour – such as hazardous work in the informal agricultural and urban sectors, and in such roles as street peddling and begging – are on the rise amongst the refugees, with evidence of forced labour emerging.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
More than 80 per cent of Syrian children working in Lebanon labour in the fields, often in hazardous conditions. Many are in the fertile eastern Beqaa Valley. For many, their day begins at six in the morning, when they are collected by truck from their camp.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
Maysa, 11 (left,) and Rana, 10, are sisters whose family fled the Aleppo region in Syria. They work from the early morning until 11am. “The potatoes are heavy, and the onions are hot and make me cry,” says Rana. They return to their camp to attend a makeshift school run by the Lebanese organisation Beyond. Maysa wants to become a doctor and Rana a teacher.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
The children will be paid around $6.50 a day, but about $1.30 of this will go to their camp’s coordinator who arranges the children’s work.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
Fieldworker Cildar is 12; two of his 14 siblings work, but neither of his parents has found employment. He also attends school in the camp after work. But school back home in Syria was better, because “there was building, here there is a tent.” Before becoming a refugee, he had hoped to go on to university.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
Some children take up other kinds of jobs, including factory work and other roles in the informal urban sector. Eleven-year-old Hussein works for no pay in a car repair garage; in return, he is being trained as a mechanic.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
Before becoming refugees, Ahmad, 12 (left), and Mahmoud, 16, were school children in Syria’s Daraa region. They now shine shoes on the streets of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
On World Day Against Child Labour on June 12, Syrian and Lebanese children working in agriculture and small informal establishments in the Beqaa Valley held a performance to highlight their plight.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
The play raises the issue of children involved in street-peddling of inexpensive items such as flowers. Street-peddling and other roles such as begging are some of the worst forms of child labour, because they leave children vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse and exploitation.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
ILO Deputy Regional Director for the Arab States Frank Hagemann addresses the audience at the performance. As part of its response to the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon and neighbouring Jordan, the ILO is working with local partners in a number of avenues including promoting child labour legislation and law enforcement, developing economic opportunities for parents and youths of working age, integrating children into the educational system, and capacity building for the local community.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
The children staged the play after months of training by Syrian and Lebanese social workers and arts, theatre and music teachers who employed aspects of the ILO-IPEC SCREAM programme: the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour’s programme for Supporting Children’s Rights through Education, the Arts and the Media.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
Some 3,000 working and at-risk Syrian refugee children and their families attended the production, as well as Lebanese children from host communities, local policy makers, municipality officials, humanitarian and NGO workers and representatives from worker and employer organisations.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
The play aims to inform young people of the causes and consequences of child labour, particularly the worst forms of child labour, with the aim of eliminating its occurrence in the region. SCREAM emphasises the use of the arts to help young people express themselves while supporting their personal and social development.
© Tabitha Ross/ILO
Today there are 9.2 million child labourers in the Middle East and North Africa (8.4 percent of the global total), trapped by poverty and lack of education. The last decade had witnessed significant progress against child labour in the region. Child protection measures such as raising the minimum age for work, have come into force in many countries.