National Coalition on the Rights of the Child in Lebanon The Fourth and Fifth Alternative Report on the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Lebanon Introduction

Recommendation 29:Activate the Central Bureaus of Statistics; especially in the childhood field.

Recommendation 30: Unify the mechanisms, the frameworks, the tools used for following up with cases and others to obtain results, the studies, the cases and the learned lessons.

Fourth: Coordination

20. 
    Sectoral coordination working groups were established in response to the influx of Syrian refugees and the concurrent mobilisation of various international and local organisations to effectuate humanitarian assistance. The working groups are chaired and co-chaired by relevant government ministries and UN agencies. They consist of: the Basic Assistance Working Group, The Child Protection in Emergencies Working Group (CPiEWG), The Education Working Group, the Food Security Sector (FSS) Working Group, The Health Working Group, The Livelihood Sector, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) National Task Force, The Shelter Working Group, the Social Stability Working Group, the WASH Working Group, and an information management working group.¹⁰
    
21. 
    Despite the great care given by the Higher Council for Childhood to involve civil society institutions in itswork committees, its productivity is related to projects funded by local and international organizations, without the presence of a clear strategy for the work of these committees funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Therefore, we believe that the effectiveness of such coordination rises and drops according to the available projects in addition to the involvement of politics in a lot of these coordinating businesses;due to the political party that reaches the Ministry of Affairs as aGuardianship Ministry for the work of the Supreme Council for Childhood. But most of all, we do not see the involvement of the children in the work of these committees formed for the coordination.
    

Recommendation 31: A clear strategy for the work of the committees of the Supreme Council for Childhood funded from the budget of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

Recommendation 32: Involve children in the work of the committees of the Supreme Council for Childhood through representatives elected by them.

Fifth: Allocation of Resources

22. 
    The Lebanese government has long suffered from political paralysis in its budget processes. A national budget has not been approved since 2005, meaning that legal government expenditures are effectively frozen at $6.8 billion annually. However, spending pressures required the government to approve extra-budgetary spending estimated at around $15 billion between 2006 and 2011, without parliamentary approval. ¹¹ Accordingly, yearly budgets are determined in compliance with the 2005 budget while attempting to maintain social expenditures in health, education, and social services at the same levels and to increase them. It is estimated that social expenditures reached 13.25 percent out of the total national budget in 2005.¹²
    

23. 
    Lebanon does not have a national budgeting system that allows the measurement of national resources allocated to children. Budgets within ministries are allocated per department or programmes regardless of whether the beneficiaries are adults or children. In this report, focus was placed on existing assessments of social expenditures, however various ministries which are not categorised as specifically providing social services to children but do allocate resources which affect children, cannot be readily assessed given their budget structure. These include the Ministry of Labour (Child Labour unit), Ministry of Justice (Juvenile Justice department), Ministry of Culture , Ministry of Media, Ministry of Interior and Municipalities (municipal funds allocated to children projects), and Ministry of Youth and Sports.¹³
    

Recommendation 33: Prepare a public budget for disbursement for 2017 and do not apply the Provisional Twelfths Rule because it has been applied from 2005 to date.

Recommendation 34: Allocate clauses for children in the 2017 budget focusing on special projects and programs for children distributed among the ministries concerned to work with them.

Sixth: International Assistance

24. 
    UN Agencies and international NGOs working in Lebanon support the funding of several action plans and strategies related to childhood, they all participate in setting these strategies and funding parts of them. On the other hand, the Government of Lebanon and its partners have set the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP) that describes how they will work together to reinforce stability through this crisis while also protecting Lebanon’s most vulnerable inhabitants, including de facto refugees. The Lebanon chapter of the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan 2015-16 (3RP) represents both the international and Lebanese government’s commitment to expedite strategies and funding to mitigate the impact of the crisis on Lebanon’s stability. Stabilisation, in the context of the LCRP, means strengthening national capacities to address long-term poverty and social tensions while also meeting humanitarian needs. The LCRP (2015-2016) proposes a $2.14 billion plan to 1) provide direct humanitarian assistance to 2.2 million highly-vulnerable individuals with acute needs, primarily de facto refugees from Syria and 2) invest in services, economies, and institutions reaching up to 2.9 million people in the poorest locations.¹⁴ It is not clear how funding will be secured for the LCRP. A decrease in funding has occurred since the onset of the Syrian Crisis, particularly UNHCR which saw programmes downsized. If funding is not secured, children’s rights will be gravely impacted. In fact, a scarcity of resources will lead to major child protection risks that will be difficult to contain by the government and other children’s rights actors.¹⁵
    

Recommendation 35: Promote transparency and accountability in these programs towards international institutions in order to enhance the confidence of government programs.

Recommendation 36: include funding for the LCRP from the national budget and the Lebanese government should ask for increased international funding for the Syrian crisis and show transparency in allocations and spending.

Seventh: Independent Monitoring Structure

25. 
    Lebanon previously reported that a specific children’s ombudsperson was under consideration and discussion, however no further progress has been made. On Aug. 4, 2014, relevant parliamentary committees endorsed the bill stipulating the establishment of an independent national human rights institution, including an independent permanent National Committee for the Prevention of Torture in accordance with the provisions of the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The bill was subsequently referred to the parliament for endorsement. To date the bill is not endorsed, and the national human rights institution is not yet established, despite that some processes were implemented by HCC and MOSA with respect to establishing a hotline for children and a Facebook-based complaints mechanism. Although the institution’s work would theoretically encompass children rights, it is still unclear whether its mandate would ensure the monitoring of children’s rights at national, regional, and local levels and the reception and investigation of complaints on violations of children’s rights from the public, including individual children.¹⁶
    

Recommendation 37: Approve the draft law regarding the establishment of the Independent National Human Rights Institution (NHRI).

Recommendation 38: Establish an “Ombudsman” institution as an independent institution to monitor the violations to the children’s rights and their correct application.

Eighth: Training and Dissemination of the Convention

26. 
    HCC has adopted a process of training based on the CRC as an introduction to all other topics relating to children, however there are no national comprehensive plans that are based on training needs assessments and that would reach new professionals involved with working with children. INGOs and local NGOs implement training activities, however they are restricted to their specific programmes.There are various activities aimed at raising awareness in children and adults about the CRC, however they generally relate to individual projects or stand-alone operations. There is no set programme focused on reaching all Lebanese children and non-Lebanese children from all age groups. Child-friendly versions of the CRCs were produced by HCC but with no set dissemination plan. HCC disseminates publications through its members and committees, events activities, and upon requests by various organisations. The Social Development Centres (SDCs) represent the decentralised channel for dissemination.¹⁷
    

Recommendation 39: Adopt teaching the child rights within the educational curriculum, distributed according to primary, intermediate and secondary education levels.

Ninth: Cooperation with Community Associations

27. 
    The non-governmental sector plays apartner role to the Lebanese State in providing various services to all segments of society, especially the most marginalized groups, by delegating these powers to associations through contracts concluded with government departments based on financial contributions agreed upon by the parties; however, they often remain powerless in providing adequate coverage for beneficiaries. Furthermore, the contractual relationship is subject to non-systematic or practical supervision based on specific and transparent standards.
    

28. 
    National civil society plays a major role in service provision, a number of NGOs are contracted by the ministries to provide services on their behalf. However, there are no set criteria for choosing these NGOs or the quality of services they are providing, neither a monitoring and evaluation system. Also, the HCC established 14 national committees in 2010, in the context of the elaboration of the National Childhood Action Plan, encompassing members from ministries, government, NGOs, academia, unions, experts, and children. The committees were established based on ministerial decisions and their tasks included the elaboration of action plans, national reports, and studies. They included legislation, children with disabilities, health, culture and media, children participation, prevention and protection from violence and abuse, children in conflict with the law, education, early childhood care and development, family environment and alternative care, street children and at risk refugee children, and the protection of children from internet risks. The fourteenth committee, information and documentation, was subsequently cancelled following the initiation of the information and documentation project at MOSA. The ability of the HCC’s recommendations to bring about change is restricted by the degree to which ministries and relevant governmental stakeholders cooperate. In many issues, such as early childhood development and children with disabilities, a great deal of inter-ministerial cooperation is needed, but it is not always guaranteed.¹⁸
    

29. 
    On the other hand, Sectoral coordination working groups were established in response to the influx of Syrian refugees and the concurrent mobilisation of various international and local organisations to effectuate humanitarian assistance. The working groups are chaired and co-chaired by relevant government ministries and UN agencies.¹⁹
    

Recommendation 40: Activate control over the contractual institutions, especially in regard to the quality of the provided service.

Recommendation 41: Activate coordination and cooperation with community institutions and societies at national and local levels within clear frameworks based on partnership and sustainability.

Chapter Two: Definition of a Child

30. 
    There is no mention in the Lebanese law of the definition of a child nor any specification of the age of the child,however there are information indicatedin the provisions of Article 215 of the Obligations and Contracts Act, that "every person that attained 8 years old is worthy of commitment, except where his/her eligibility is questioned in a legal text". Also, Law No. 422/2002 specified the age of 18 to take protective measures to minors at risk. Apart from that, there is no mention of a clear definition of a child and his/ her age, although Lebanon has ratified the UNCRC since 1991. As a result, we also see many of problematic issues in the laws adopted in Lebanon as a result of its contradiction to the UNCRC and the most important of which is mentioned in the personal status laws relating to the custody age, minimum age for marriage authorized differently each according to his/her specific religious sect.
    

Recommendation 42: include in the child code, a clear definition of a child from 0 to 18 years old to be applied to all circumstances.

Chapter Four: Civil Rights and Freedoms

First: Birth Registration, Name and Nationality, and Preservation of Identity

31. 
    Lebanon has international obligations and is bound to international customary laws which require it to register all children born on Lebanese territory without discrimination or distinctiveness. Despite not ratifying the convention on the Status of Stateless Persons or the 1961 Convention on Reduction of Statelessness²⁰, as well as failing to formulate an all-inclusive registration policy for all newborn babies within its borders. It is noteworthy to mention that there have been some positive actions taken by the Lebanese authorities in improving the legal status of children. For example, adding a paragraph to article 501 of the criminal code clearly stating that parental negligence in registering children is considered a criminal offense punishable by law, as well as amending Article 25 of Law 422 which guarantees protection for juvenile offenders²¹.
    

32. 
    There’s a main problem with children without identity cards, that are denied their social security benefits and opportunities to go through the school official exams and thus to obtain certificates to be able to apply for work opportunities.
    

The influx of Syrian refugees has not helped the situation either; 92% of Syrian refugees are unable to satisfy the requirements necessary to register their children, leading to 72% of newborn Syrian children not having official birth certificates or any sort of legal representation. Moreover, Palestinians who are not registered with the UNRWA face a serious threat of being denied of their basic fundamental rights, by not being able to access public services such as education, health and the labor market. Although the Lebanese government had negotiated with the PLO in 2008 and decided to grant identification cards for unregistered Palestinians, this can be reversed at any moment without any need for justification. Moreover, the 2001 amendment of the 1969 legislative decree regarding the ownership of real estate property by non-Lebanese deliberately left out all stateless persons. This affects refugees and foreigners without a nationality of a recognized state. Although this is not directly relevant to children, but it emphasizes on how the failure to register children will violate their economic rights in the future. The amendment has left out stateless persons, meaning that, rather than finding durable ways to integrate these people, the law tends to marginalize them even further.

Lebanese law does not allow women or mothers who are married to foreigners to grant their nationality to their children under the assumption that it would damage the delicate demographic balance in the country. Concerning education, Ministerial decision 47 (2003) exempts’ students enrolled in the public education system from registration fees, but fails to cover foreign children who do not possess any legal identification, excluding children from primary and secondary education .

Recommendation 43: Provide services for stateless children until they are granted identity cards.

Recommendation 44: Ratify the convention on the Status of Stateless Persons.

Recommendation 45: Amend the citizenship law to allow women to give their nationality to their children, providing access to civil registration, and protection of stateless persons.

Recommendation 46: Grant identification documents to undocumented Palestinian refugees in a sustainable process that would ensure the dignity of this population, their legal right, and equality with documented Palestinian refugees; in addition to accepting new requests for registration.

Recommendation 47: Follow extraordinary measures in registering the newborn of Palestinian refugees from Syria as a result of the harsh conditions they are living in, based on the child’s right to a legal status as mentioned in the Convention on Child Rights.

Fifth: Obtain Information from a Variety of Sources, and Protection from Harmful Substances for his/her Well-Being

Chapter Five: Violence against Children

First: Abuse and Neglect including Physical and Psychological Rehabilitation and Social Reintegration

33. 
    The amendment of Article 186 of the sanctions that prohibited cruel discipline by teachers law kept the right to discipline to parents, which is not sufficient to protect the rights of the child, especially by giving the right to parents to discipline their children without mentioning anyobjective or scientificcriteria, in addition to the difficulty of proving the moral damage subsequent the minor. The concept of not specifying the nature of disciplinary actions gives a wide flexibility to parents and judges in defining the act, as the law did not specify any standards for disciplinary actions, but only left it to ‘not causing anyharm’. With reference to the difficulty of proving the moral harm on the child, especially when violence is verbal with psychological consequences on the minor that its harm may exceed the level of physical violence itself.
    

34. 
    The main problem is to prove physical damage when it is detected by a non-forensic doctor, who refuses to give a medical report to prove this incident. The Syndicate of Doctors has not issued any circular in this regard. The social diversity within the Lebanese territory and the different perceptionsmay tolerate disciplinary actionsin some areas but consider them as criminal actionselsewhere. Hence, it is in this case left for the discretionary authority of the judgeand the continuity of endangering the child’s wellbeing is allowed within the framework of disciplinaryactions. As for the issue of violence perpetrated by teachers, it is dealt with within the framework of the project developed by the Ministry of Education to set up a hotline to report cases of violence, and it has been approved by the Ministry of Education to hold training sessions to raise awareness against violence in schools.
    

35. 
    The General Authority of the Lebanese Parliament approved on 01/04/2014 the law No. 293 entitled “Law on the Protection of Women and Other Family Members from Domestic Violence”. Under this law, a public prosecutor will be appointed in each of the six Lebanese governorates to receive complaints and investigate cases of violence. Furthermore, specialized domestic violence units will be established within the local police stations in Lebanon to address these complaints. The project also sets out penalties that will be issued against violators, including fines, imprisonment and rehabilitation. Any individual, who has witnessed the domestic abuse, may report about the cases where women hold proof or marks of the abuse. This draft law will allow the women and children to get a restraining order against the aggressor, and the public prosecutor in every governorate or court will make a decision within 48 hours.On the other hand, theadministrative decrees relating to the implementation of this law are not yet released. The law also created confusion among the powers of the civil judge and the juvenile judge so that in many cases, the juvenile judge eludes from his duties to the civil judge. However, in practice, the issuance of law 293 helped by encouraging women to speak out about domestic violence, as it gave the wife the right to remain at home and the right to keep her husband away from it.
    

36. 
    The Law no. 422/2002 on the protection of juveniles in conflict with the law and at risk is considered a special law, which cares for the justice of juveniles, especially those in conflict with the law, and yet many of its basic clause regarding their protection have not been implemented, particularly in regard to juvenile corrections distributed to the provinces. One must refer to the single article (Article 25), which talks about the juveniles at risk, in addition to taking protective and precautionary measures to protect them. From the fundamental principles proclaimed by the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Justice for Juveniles in Conflict with the Law (the Beijing Rules),which were adopted by the General Assembly in its decision no. 40/22 on the 29^th of November 1985, are the following: Fair trial and human trial for juveniles for their own safety, the principle of proportionality between the action and the procedure, the separation of juveniles from adults in the centers, respect for the child’s best interests in all proceedings, and the objective of prosecuting juveniles is to consider the juvenile’s best interests.
    

37. 
    Furthermore, the Law No. 422/2002, which prosecutes the juveniles who are at odds with the law, states a text in Article 33 of its provisions on prosecuting the juvenile as an adult before ordinary courts, i.e. adult courts, in case of inseparability of the crime and criminal complicity; provided that this prosecution applies all the guarantees given for the juvenile before the juvenile court. However, it is important to note that the Law no. 422/2002 from a legislative point of view has not yet completed its relevant decrees, nor the pastoral centers set forth therein; as the Observation House has now become a juvenile prison in Roumieh, and the Institute of Discipline has not seen the light. After completing the study, entitled “Convening of theMinor and the Adult before Justice"²² in 2013, over 40 files in the North and Mount Lebanon Governorates have been looked into, which held a lot of flaws in terms of applying the legal texts which protect the minor during his trial.
    

38. 
    For social protection measures imposed by the juvenile judge under Article 27 of Law No. 422 assigning this task to social workers, the Ministry of Justice has contracted with one Lebanese association the "Union of the Protection of Juveniles," which recruits a limited number of social workers because of the its limited resources.An agreement was signed between the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Social Affairs to have the social workers of the Ministry of Social Affairs attend the trial sessions with children in conflict with the law and not only to follow up on the protection files. While their main responsibilities should be the follow up of the implementation of the protection measures and submit periodic reports to the court. Also, the efficiency required to contract those social workers is not clearly defined. In addition, there is no actual hot line that is available for direct contact with the Union of the Protection of Juveniles or the Ministry of Justice or the security services, including the judicial police.
    

39. 
    On 12/12/2012, the Lebanese Council of Ministers approved the National Strategy for Prevention and Protection of Children from All Forms of Violence, Abuse and Neglect, which included 5 key themes scattered among the general strategic objectives. However, this plan is not attached to a general budget within relevant ministries, and the implementation of its parts is limited to funding received from international organisations, UN Agencies and local NGOs initiatives.
    

40. 
    The ministerial circulars issued in 2012 on the monitoring and reporting of cases of violence on children, and the Ministry of Health circular urgingthe workers with children to report cases of violence, are not implemented effectively as there was no creation ofmonitoring committees by the concerned ministries, and thus there was no follow-up of the implementation, considering that the number of disciplinary decisions issued in this subject are almost non-existent.