Lebanon is effectively preventing thousands of Syrian refugees from renewing their residency permits, exposing them to possible exploitation and abuse, according to a report released on Tuesday by non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW). While Lebanon is unable to return people to places where they risk being persecuted or tortured, the country is not a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention, meaning that it won’t assign refugee status to individuals who would otherwise qualify for it under global law.
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“Lebanon’s shortsighted policies are setting the stage for a potentially explosive situation”, HRW’s Deputy Middle East Director, Nadim Houry, said in a press release on Tuesday. But the rights group reported finding prohibitive hurdles to the UNHCR route, pushing Syrians into the murky sponsorship trade.
Approximately 70 Canadian Armed Forces members have returned from Jordan and Lebanon, where they were part of a broader government effort to bring 25,000 Syrians to Canada by the end of next month. Amnesty International called the action “an outrageous breach of Lebanon’s international obligations”.
Brown, the former British prime minister, said in a statement that “death voyages to Europe” will soar in 2016 as long as Syria’s six million displaced children and two million refugee children “are exploited and denied any opportunity within the region”.
HRW said the need to find a sponsor increased Syrians’ exposure to harassment and facilitated corruption.
“Over these next few weeks the pressure is on to raise an additional $500 million to ensure that a million children who are refugee children are in school”, Brown said, adding that in 2017 “we want to be able to say that every single refugee child is being offered, boy and girl, the chance of education”.
The war in Syria headed for a sixth year resulting in many Syrians fleeing and finding an alternate home in European countries.
Another told HRW that the fact that his sponsor was his employer had locked him into an endless cycle of abuse and exploitation.
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Weil said the government will ensure it has enough resources to properly educate Syrian children in French and to enrol them quickly in full-time school. I have to do whatever he says. Others said they were underpaid by their employers, who take advantage of their inability to complain to the authorities.
