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When visitors enter the Home of Hope shelter in Mount Lebanon’s Kahaleh, children will inevitably flock around them and demand hugs. The shelter’s youngest residents in particular crave affection, and yet director Raghida al-Assal is explicit about the dangers of this behavior.
“They don’t understand that you don’t hug a stranger, and if they leave the Home of Hope, they aren’t going to know how to say no to abuse,” she warns. Home of Hope personnel maintain “a watchful eye over everyone who walks in here” for a good reason: Assal says that 97 percent of the children the shelter hosts have protection files, issued by a juvenile judge if a child is an abuse victim.
A protection file includes the necessary actions taken by the judge to protect the child based on the report of social workers or investigators.
The shelter’s composition reflects the various types of maltreatment that abused children may face in Lebanese society. The children sent to the shelter have either been reported as abused, or were simply picked up from the streets by the police, as child begging is forbidden under Law 422, which defines the protection system for children who are at-risk or in conflict with the law.
The plight of street children
Children on the streets are particularly prone to abuse and exploitation. There are at least 1,500 child beggars in Lebanon, according to a study by UNICEF, the International Labor Organization and Save the Children International.
For these children, the police investigation into whether the children were being coerced into begging is usually brief – and so is their stay at the Home for Hope shelter.
The shelter is one of just few in the country where children picked up for begging are sent by juvenile judges who determine the duration of their stay. Assal’s goal is to provide children under their care with the skills necessary to avoid being exploited for begging once they are out again.
This proves difficult, though, as Assal says some children stay for as little as a week, which limits the amount of help the shelter can provide. “It takes a child one month to adapt. They’ve come from the street, where there are no rules, to a place where there is discipline and they are expected to do things a certain way.”
Leaving after only several weeks, the children are likely to go back “to square one” – to the streets of greater Beirut and Tripoli, where they are frequently subjected to abuse, including sexual violence.
Hostility is on display even in Home of Hope’s immediate vicinity, as the children are prevented from playing in the courtyard for longer than two hours a day by neighbors who object to their presence.
Caring for abused kids
Organizations such as the local NGO Himaya seek to prevent child abuse while offering psychosocial support and legal guidance to victims.
According to Maria Shaya, Himaya’s communications director, abused children often don’t have a safe place to which they can return and so many end up having to spend time in a juvenile jail while they await a judge’s decision, which has negative effects on their mental health.
Shaya acknowledges that in certain environments, children are more susceptible to abuse, though she warned against stereotyping violence against children as limited to a certain demographic.
“Abuse happens everywhere,” she says, no matter the family’s social class, educational background, nationality or place of residence.
According to Shaya, Himaya was founded following the publication of a 2008 study by another NGO, Kafa (Enough Violence and Exploitation), which deals with gender-based violence in addition to child abuse. Kafa’s study found that almost one in six children is a victim of some form of sexual abuse.
Himaya has experienced a surge in cases submitted over the years: In 2014, 711 instances of abuse were documented; by 2017, that number had climbed to more than 1,218.
The trend seems alarming, but, Shaya explains, this may be because Himaya is reaching more people than before – or perhaps because social taboos are eroding, leading to more reports of abuse.
Amira Sukkar, president of the Union for the Protection of Juveniles in Lebanon, confirmed that the reporting of child abuse cases has become increasingly frequent, though she declined to provide her organization’s own child abuse statistics, saying they were only available upon special permission from the Justice Ministry.
In an effort to further combat the silence surrounding abuse, “[Himaya tells] people that by reporting you are actually saving a life, rather than harming the family,” Shaya says. “At Himaya, we are here to support the family. We are not here to break homes, but to fix the relationships.”
Cultural barriers
War Child Holland’s Lebanon country director Don McPhee explains that children in Lebanon inhabit a culture where “the expectation is that the child will be taken care of by the extended family and the community.” There is therefore an emphasis on family reunification after cases of abuse.
“What has not come in place here is the idea that there could be institutional care, fostering and adoption.”
In Lebanon, adoption is often a difficult process, as the laws surrounding it vary based on provisions stipulated by religious institutions in the country’s confessional system.
When War Child Holland engages in awareness programs for children and adults on topics such as child abuse, McPhee said the organization often encounters social and cultural barriers.
“The further you get away from Beirut to rural areas, the more conservative it becomes and the more difficult it becomes to talk about some of the issues,” McPhee says.
According to Fatima Nabaa, the organization’s technical officer for child protection, children are reluctant to discuss possible abuse when the group seeks to identify it.
War Child Holland’s work is further complicated by differences in perception as to what constitutes abuse, the definition of which includes physical and sexual violence – but also encompasses minor corporal punishments and insults.
For example, in the case of slaps used against misbehaving children, Nabaa says, “mothers don’t perceive it as a form of abuse.”
McPhee adds: “It’s easy to say you shouldn’t do that, but it takes time and effort for the relationship with the child to change from that of physical domination to discussion, encouragement.” He says the broad definition of abuse makes any statistics misleading, but supports the idea of an anonymous national child helpline, which would help organizations “learn more about the extent of the problem, while maintaining confidentiality.”
Legal framework
The challenges to abuse prevention and treatment also lie in a lack of clarity within the legal framework, which, according to Himaya, contains various loopholes.
Sukkar is of the same view, as she calls for Law 422 to be amended to incorporate a standard operating procedure. Currently, she argued, the same legal files for children may result in different sentences in the Bekaa or Mount Lebanon.
She believes a better implementation of the existing framework, as well as regular training for juvenile judges working on child protection cases, may be another part of the solution. Before the system improves, however, Home of Hope’s director urges government and nongovernmental actors work together.
In the meantime, Shaya hopes cultural influences will create an impact in transforming mentalities.
She is counting on the recent release of Nadine Labaki’s film Capernaum, the winner of the Jury Prize at the 2018 Cannes Festival, to help raise awareness of their cause on a larger platform.
“Nadine was Himaya’s ambassador for so many years and supported one of our biggest campaigns in 2011. She believes in our cause,” Shaya says. Zain, the 12-year old protagonist of the film who sues his parents for giving birth to him after he and his siblings experience extreme poverty, exploitation and abuse, “is just one of so many stories happening every day that we receive.”
Source: The Daily Star
