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President Michel Aoun Tuesday advised children to sing, play and dance, and to “declare to all that your childhood is your right ... and no one is entitled to take it from you.”
Aoun made the comments during the inauguration of the National Choir Combatting Child Labor, which was held at Baabda Palace.
The president lamented the fact that some children spend their childhood weaving through the traffic, “selling [chewing] gum and endangered by all types of aggressions.”
He asked: “What rights endure for them, and what remains of their childhood and what future awaits them?”
The president noted that such “street children” were present in Lebanon, but that the phenomenon had increased with the arrival of Syrian refugees fleeing conflict in their homeland.
“There are big, unorganized groups who arrived to a country that already suffered from economic hardships and unemployment, so many families have relied on their children to work, or pushed them to beg,” Aoun said.
Both Syrian and Palestinian refugees face barriers to entry in many Lebanese sectors of the economy.
Source: The Daily Star
