According to recent statistics published by the United Nations High Council for Refugees (UNHCR), of the 3.8 million Syrians who have fled their homes in the four years since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, nearly half – close to two million individuals – have sought refuge in neighbouring Lebanon. For a country with a population of only 4.4 million inhabitants, such an influx of refugees will necessarily have a significant impact, and there has been much focus on the plight of Syrians in Lebanon, especially during the harsh winter months when many thousands have been left without adequate food or shelter.
But a recent incident in Beirut has draw attention to a less-discussed aspect of being Syrian in Lebanon – that of having to negotiate a prickly terrain of hostility and prejudice from many Lebanese themselves.
The physical assault of a Syrian child beggar by a an employee in the Hamra branch of Dunkin Donuts in Beirut last week may have sparked outrage among some circles – with many even calling for a boycott of the high street chain in protest, despite the fact that Dunkin Donuts immediately suspended the employee in question – but it speaks to a deeper malaise within Lebanese society, and in particular regarding attitudes towards Syrian refugees.
Child beggars are hardly a new sight in Lebanon; indeed, as early as 2006, there were an estimated 100,000 such children across the country, many victims of organised criminal rackets or even forced into begging by their own families in order to make ends meet. There have even been gruesome reports of Syrian children being forced to sell their own organs in a desperate bid to support their families. But although the huge numbers of desperate Syrian refugees streaming into the country following the beginning of the violence in 2011 has certainly exacerbated this problem, it is not the entire story.
Syrian migration to Lebanon is by no means a new phenomenon, and it was common to see Syrian workers – and even beggars – on the streets of Beirut and surrounding cities. Prior to 2011, there were an estimated 300,000 seasonal Syrian workers in Lebanon, most working in menial or hard labour jobs such as construction. As a country with more nationals residing abroad than within its territorial borders, Lebanon has long been dependent on such migrant labour in order to keep the everyday workings of the state ticking over; there is a long-standing idiom that claims that “Lebanon has been built with Syrian muscles”. Indeed, in a seminal study on Syrian migrant workers in Lebanon published in 2007, John Chalcroft, an associate professor at the London School of Economics, argues that many “Syrians’ attempts to improve their lives have made them vulnerable on many levels,” and that the logics of a capitalist market economy in the region have led to “a form of economic migration apparently based on choice in fact subjects Syrians to forms of power outside of their control.”
As is often the case in such instances of economic migration, hand in hand with Lebanon’s reliance on the hard labour of Syrian workers, the country has long harboured xenophobic and derogatory views towards Syrians. Indeed, the history of the two countries has been a turbulent one, and a quick glance at the comments generated on social media from individuals who supported the Dunkin Donuts employee is enough to see that many Lebanese justify such behaviour on the grounds that Lebanese children were equally harshly treated during the 30-year Syrian occupation. Alongside such prejudices, there is also a long-standing (and equally historically constructed) ethnic and sectarian rivalry between predominately Sunni Arab Syria and more diverse, Christian and Shia-dominated Lebanon. Arguably, it is this last factor that has contributed to the ongoing marginalisation and disenfranchisement of Syrian refugees, whose Sunni Arab roots are seen by many in Lebanon as threatening to shift the balance of power in the country in favour of the hitherto minority Sunni sect.
To be Syrian in Lebanon, it seems, has long meant to be part of a shunned and denigrated minority; a fact that has been spotlighted in the wake of the mass influx of Syrian refugees since 2011. One of the consequence of such large number of people seeking food and shelter has been to drive up prices of basic provisions, including healthcare. In a recent article for MEMO, non-profit organisation International Alert, who specialise in peacebuilding and conflict sensitivity, outlined the misperceptions surrounding Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and particularly the notion that Syrians get preferential treatment when it comes to healthcare and other services, and tend to “abuse the system”.
“There has been an almost complete segregation of Syrians and Lebanese in waiting rooms, as well as a rise of the practice of fast-tracking Lebanese nationals, which obviously has serious consequences for needy Syrian refugees,” says Lana Khattab, a researcher at International Alert.
When it comes to the plight of Syrian child refugees, the situation is even more dire, says Khattab. As well as the lack of adequate food and shelter, and only having access to limited medical and other relief supplies, many children are simply left with nothing to occupy themselves with and no hope for the future.
“No one speaks about education,” says Khattab, “it’s such a big gap. You have all these young children on the streets – in ten years, if they have no education, what will happen to them?”
Children are not only vulnerable to exploitation by criminal gangs and begging networks, she says, but also to being victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. And this is just as true for young boys as it is for girls and women. “There has been a lot of emphasis on the cases of women and girls being raped in refugee camps or being used as sex slaves by ISIS, but people forget that young boys and men are vulnerable too.”
The plight of Syrian children and other refugees in Lebanon is only made worse by the lack of resources and funds available to deal with the problem. The Lebanese government simply does not have the capacity to deal with an extra two million people living within its borders; and the state’s tendency to treat Syrian refugees as a threat deserving of a security – rather than humanitarian – response has only exacerbated the situation. Sadly, too, international humanitarian funding for Syrian refugees is beginning to run dry as the world’s eyes turn to other, more recent events in the region.
“Syria is seen as an ‘old’ issue,” says Khattab, “there’s less and less funding available. But these people are still there and still in need of our help.”
In particular, she says, those Syrians in Lebanon face such difficult challenges partly because of their own socio-economic status. “These are the Syrians who were invisible in Syria,” says Khattab, “these are the true urban poor who came to the cities following the liberalisation policies of Bashar Al-Assad and were forced to leave their farmsteads and tribal homelands.”
And this is, finally, the crux of the issue. In a Middle East where the accelerated pace of economic liberalisation and market-reforms has pushed to the margins whole strata of traditional society, these are the individuals who have suffered the most. Those Syrian refugees in Lebanon have twice been victims of the changing circumstances of the region, first in Syria and now, it seems in Lebanon; they are the hitherto invisible face of capitalism’s dark underbelly and, as such, the responsibility for their fate lies with all of us.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.