From: elie@hdtv.njit.edu (Elie I. Mourad)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
Subject: Lebanon's Children
Date: 12 Nov 92 12:21:17 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.



From CLAO:

Foundlings, orphans, the handicapped and mentally retarded, a growing
number of street children, and incidences of child prostitution,
provide the most obvious evidence that the children of Lebanon are still
in need...

In the absence of reliable statistics for any of the major social
problems, nobody knows how many orphans there are in Lebanon.
Some estimates put the figure as high as 100,000.

There are about 80 orphanages, mainly concentrated in an around Beirut.
A recent report by a major international agency described conditions
in some of them as "horrific", with no educational or recreational
facilities, and low standards of nutrition and hygiene, including
infestations of vermin...

A study carried out five years ago by the American University of 
Beirut concluded that the level of facilities for handicapped children
was "appalingly low". The mentally handicapped - probably the second
largest category of disabled children - were particularly poorly
provided for, accorded only a handful of low-quality centers.

Little has changed since then, except that the number of children
in need has grown. Again, there are no reliable statistics, and such
figures as do exist are usually many years out of date.

Worsening economic and social conditions lead some pediatricians 
to maintain that the overall situation of children is worse now
than it was when hostitlities were raging...

The same kind of social degradation that leads people to abandon 
babies in the streets is visible behind another problem that is
attracting increasing attention - the growing number of street 
children who spend their day begging, selling chewing gum, or cleaning 
car windshields when they should - even under Lebanese law - be in school...

"Many of the children are organized and exploited by gangs, who take
them in the morning in vans and distribute them around the main streets,"
says Aida Jammal of UNICEF. "But there are also parents who may be
very poor or disabled, and who send the children because they really
need the income."

Actually dealing with the issue is another matter, given the mass
of other problems underlying it. The children themselves cannot be
simply put directly in normal schools, since they are completely
uneducated and also have behavioural problems. There is no facility
at present for the kind of rehabilitation work needed.

Closely related is the problem of child prostitution, which is also
attracting growing concern. On January 13, Beirut police arrested
six girls aged between 13 and 15 who had been working the city's 
seafront for the past two years.

All these problems represent only the most visible tip of a very
large iceberg, in terms of what the war and its aftermath have done to
a generation of children who have grown up knowning only conflict and
upheaval...

Even middle class children who managed to finish school or university
courses did not always escape the traumas of war. Doctors and 
psychiatrists say their clinics are flooded by children with 
psychosomatic ailments or emotional disturbances.

"We need a child psychiatrist in every school," says Wali Merhej,
a German pediatrician and child psychologist who has treated children
in Lebanon for 25 years. "The children are definitely the ones who
suffered the most from the war, because they are not emotionally settled."

Dr. Merhej and others say many children suffer from fear, anxiety, aggressive
behaviour, withdrawal, depression, and insomnia as a result of war traumas.
She reports cases of stammering, tongue-biting, and even acute
schizophrenia among children exposed to disturbing events.

A recent study by Mona Mqsoud of Columbia University indicated that 
96 percent of children in Beirut had been exposed to at least one
traumatic event, and that many had experienced five or more kinds of
trauma.

All this has taken its toll even on the best brought up children.

To try to undo some of the damage and break down barriers of prejudice
and communal estrangement erected by the war, UNICEF is laying great
emphasis on an Education for Peace program in Lebanon, under which 5,000
youth leaders have been trained as "agents for peace".

"What is needed is to introduce into our education system techniques,
skills, aptitudes and knowledge on how to understand and overcome a 
problem by means other than violence," says Anna Mansour of UNICEF.

"The lessons learned from Lebanon could definitely be relevant in 
helping young people in other conflict situation, such as 
Yugoslavia, avoid falling into the same trap," she added.

(Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 25 '92)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon