The country, which has been in a severe economic crisis for four years, sees many children on the streets who, among other things, collect garbage for starvation wages.
In Lebanon, Unicef is sounding the alarm. With children dropping out of school at an increasingly early age, 15% of families would let their children work to survive, a number that has been rising steadily since the crisis began in 2019.
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Dozens of small silhouettes bustle on the piles of rubbish that litter the sidewalks of the Sabra neighborhood south of Beirut. Children covered in dirt, their hands in the garbage cans, under the blazing sun. Mohammad, 13, has been awake since 5am. He works here with his 10 and 11 year old brothers. “Our father is ill. He can’t work,” he explains. “So all our loved ones are counting on us to live.”
“I am ashamed to have to take out the rubbish. We should go to school. I dream of going to school, having a normal job that allows me to help my family. But I know that’s impossible.”
Mohammed, 13 years old
at franceinfo
“We have nothing left”
Carrying sacks of plastic bottles on their backs, Mohammed and his brothers set out to resell what they had collected a few tens of meters away, where another eight-year-old child, this one, is weighing his collection.
Mohammed bought the equivalent of three euros for two kilos of plastic. The only adult here is called Ali and runs the shop. “There are some who are barely five years old,” he laments. “And now you even see girls working early in the morning. It’s so sad, it breaks my heart.”
“But we have nothing left, so our children leave school to work. Our society is no longer even able to protect its children. It is criminal what we are doing to them.”
Ali, trader
at franceinfo
After more than ten hours in the garbage, Mohammed and his brothers finally return to find their mother. “I’m angry and ashamed that my kids have to loot to make money,” she says. “We have no choice if we want to survive. We don’t get any help so they can go to school. Neither from the United Nations nor from anyone.” The owner of the apartment demands 50 euros rent per month: “So that my children can work, so that we don’t end up on the street.”
Before the economic crisis of 2019 in Lebanon, according to UNESCO, the literacy rate of 15 to 24 year olds was 99.8%. This rate will collapse in the next few years because more than one in five children does not go to school.
Noé Pignède’s report in Beirut
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