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
The Fourth and Fifth Alternative Report on the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Lebanon
Introduction
This report was prepared in cooperation and coordination with a coalition of civil society organizations and associations operating in the Lebanese-Palestinian and Syrian communities in Lebanon, particularly in the childhood field, through several stages: Collection ofinformation, in addition to coordinating, drafting and reviewing it by the Coalition members. The Coalition members are active in several fields: human rights, social services, healthcare, women's rights, children's rights and the rights of people with disabilities. Through the preparation of this report, this alliance aims to review the children's rights in Lebanon and their developments, and to play an important key role in supporting their issues in Lebanon. The coalition members are: Nabaa NGO, MANARA NETWORK NGO, ALEF NGO, HIMAYA NGO, INSAN NGO, AL Najdeh NGO, MADA NGO, MOUSAWAT NGO and the union of NGOs working with people with disabilities.The current report has been prepared in accordance with the general guidelines regarding the form and content of the shadow (alternative) reports that the civil society organizations or the coalitions must submit in accordance with the principles and procedures set out by the International Committee on the Rights of the Child. The current report covers the period from 2005 until the end of 2014;relying on the final notes made by the Committee during its consideration of the Lebanon’s third report; as well as other information stated in many reports concerning the children’s condition in Lebanon. This report has been completed with the support of Save the Children International (Lebanon Office).The coalition wants to participate in the NGOs pre-session in Geneva along with children participation. A child led alternative report is attached to this NGOs report.
Lebanon ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) under Law no. 20 on 20/10/1990, and it has also ratified the Optional Protocol to Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography under Law no. 414 on 05/06/2002. Lebanon has signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict in 2007; however, it has not been ratified up until now, nor has any action been taken towards the third optional protocol in regards to filling complaints by children.
Pursuant to Paragraph 1 of Article 44 of the (CRC), the State undertakes to provide periodic reports on the implementation of the convention every five years. Lebanon has submitted three reports; the first was in 1994, whereas the second was in 1998, and the third was in 2003. Lebanon is considered late in submitting the fourth and fifth periodic reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child for 11 consecutive years. Up until now, Lebanon has not submitted its first report on the enforcement of the Optional Protocol to Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography;making Lebanon late in their submission for a period of at least ten years, and is now obliged to provide the first and second reports thereof.
Recommendation 1:Bind the Lebanese State to fulfill its obligations towards the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the First Optional Protocol, especially in providing the required reports in a timely manner regarding the enforcement andmeasurementof the progress.
Recommendation 2:The Lebanese State should ratify the Second Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict and the Third Protocol on filling direct complaints by children or their guardians to the International Committee on the Rights of the Child
The legal, social, economic and political context to exercise the rights of the child in Lebanon (implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child)
Lebanon is suffering from political and security instability and periodic and temporary paralysis of basic governmental institutions since 2006 to date, in addition to the crisis in Syria 2011 and the presidential vacuum has increasingly strained the political situation since May 2014 and the sharp political divide which disrupted all the State institutions; leading to a state of flabbiness and the spread of waste and corruption; in addition to the lack of annual budgets since 2005, and the successive governments has spent on the Provisional Twelfths Rule for 11 years without restraints.Poverty, the current political situation are the main hindering factors for the implementation of the rights of children in Lebanon and slow down the implementation of the Rights of the Child and other international treaties and national strategies.
The Syrian Crisis significantly affected the demographic profile of the country. The population of Lebanon is now one fifth Syrian (27 Syrians per 100 Lebanese), rendering it the highest per capita hosting country in the world when accounting for its previous refugee populations.1 The Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (2015-2016) estimated the population living in Lebanon at 5.9 million,2 out of which 1,048,000 Syrians are registered as refugees with UNHCR up to the 31st of March 2016. UNHCR figures indicate that the number of registered Iraqi refugees remained at 6,100.3 UNRWA estimates the number of Palestinian refugees coming from Syria (PRS) to remain constant in 2015 at around 45,000.4
At the macroeconomic level, the Syrian crisis underlined and amplified the repercussions of the deadlocked political situation, and consequently economic growth slowed considerably between 2011 and 2013. According to the International Monetary Fund, GDP growth rates decreased from 2.5 percent in 2012 to 1.5 percent in 2013.5 Spillover from the Syrian conflict has negatively affected the humanitarian, economic, and social spheres.
Recommendation 3:Promote the national interest with the election of the President of the Republic and the election of a new Parliament based on a new electoral law to enhance a genuine representation of the people.
Recommendation 4:Approve the annual general budget;in addition to approvingthe particularsregarding children to promote children's rights at the national and local levels.
Recommendation 5: Develop national policies, strategies and programs that support individuals and families, especially poor parents to eliminate child neglect and abuse.
Recommendation 6: The international community should comply with its commitments and fulfill them toward the Syrian crisis and the refugees, and enhance the size of the humanitarian response services.
The Protection and Promotion of Human Rights - The General Framework
On Nov. 10, 2010, Lebanon was reviewed by the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group of the Human Rights Council under the UPR mechanism. As an outcome of the review session, the Lebanese government accepted 69 recommendations and rejected 40 others. The principle issues that did not enjoy the support of the government comprised recommendations related to the death penalty, the jurisdiction of military courts, specific reforms regarding the elimination of gender-based discrimination from the legislative framework, specific reforms to include migrant domestic workers under the protections of the Labour law, as well as certain recommendations related to Palestinian refugees such as property rights, land ownership, and permission to work in liberal professions.6
Recommendation 7:Enhance the State’s commitments with human rights conventions, particularly regarding the rights of refugees and the additional protocols on the rights of the child.
Recommendation 8:The State should meet its commitments towards the ratified conventions, particularly in the harmonization of its laws, policies and practices, and its commitment to submit periodic reports.
Non-Discrimination and Equality
Lebanese laws guarantee partial protection against discrimination as further elaborated in the following chapter, except for personal status laws which are governed by religious concerns. The Constitution and domestic laws guarantee equal status only to Lebanese children, but leave, for example, foreign children and refugee and asylum-seeking children without such protection. Notwithstanding the legal framework, discrimination exists in practice, as mentioned previously. It is inherent to the patriarchal attitudes and deep-rooted stereotypes regarding the roles and responsibilities of males and females in the family and in society in Lebanon. In addition, girls’ inheritance is governed by the respective religions and sects, whereby certain sects do not confer equal rights to boys and girls. Civil society’s effort to advocate for a civil personal status law has repeatedly faced deadlock and obstruction. It is nearly impossible to undertake any reform in that regard given the prevalent sectarian political system.
As it stands, we can only highlight the discriminatory laws occurring towards the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon under the pretext of preventing their settlement in Lebanon, especially in respect of the right to property, the right to work and other humanitarian rights to be enjoyed by Palestinian refugees until they return to their homes.
The Palestinian refugees have resided in Lebanon for 67 years; however, the Lebanese Legislator has not provided a legal definition for them yet, so they fall administratively into three categories: The refugees registered at the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities, the Directorate of Political Affairs and Refugees, and the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA); the refugees registered at the Directorate of Political Affairs and Refugees and those not registered with UNRWA; and the refugees who are not registered with the Lebanese State and UNRWA (those who lost their identification documents); in addition to a new fourth category which is the Palestinian refugees from Syria to Lebanon due to the civil war.
The four categories of refugees continue to suffer from human rights violations; as they are exposed to multiple forms of discrimination within the laws and procedures. The discrimination, abuse, deprivation and restrictions keep their legal status devoid of any clear and binding framework to provide protection for them, which is considered as a violation of their civil, economic and social rights. Furthermore, Palestinian refugees suffer from a group of violations: Legal personality and lack of protection; the right to work and self-employment; the right to property; the right to adequate housing; the right to health; the right to a fair trial; the right of association and freedom of opinion and expression; and the right of movement, accommodation and travel; all of which adversely affect their civil, economic and social life and their mental health, and it has continued for over 67 years; making this a complex suffering, contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international covenants and conventions.
Recommendation 9:Approve the law for the establishment of the Independent National Human Rights Institution (NHRI).
Recommendation 10:The Lebanese State must issue a law that clearly and unequivocally defines the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon; ensuring their civil, economic and social rights and allowing them to live with dignity.
Recommendation 11:Acknowledge the legal personality of the Palestinian refugees from Syria to Lebanon as refugees.
Chapter One: General Implementation Measures
First: Legislation
Lebanon is committed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and has introduced the Declaration’s principles to its systems, constitution and laws; as the most prominent laws that protect the rights of children in Lebanon are limited to the Penal Code in some of its articles and the Law No. 422/2002 on minors in conflict with the law and the protection of minors at risk; and law 293 protecting all members of the family from domestic violence; whereas there is no unified law that protects all the rights of the child in accordance with the standards and conditions agreed and stipulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international conventions that protect human rights.
Recommendation 12:Adopt a unified law for the child includes everything related to child’s rights.
As for the Penal Code: The Lebanese Penal Code was developed in 1943 by the Legislative Decree No. 340 issued on 01/0 3/1943, which comes from the French Penal Code issued in 1810; belonging to the family of Roman law and the Ottoman law issued in 1840. Since its issuance date; i.e. 73 years ago, it has not been subjected to a large number of amendments;thus it has not developed in a manner that keeps pace with the rapid social development, particularly in the past twenty years. It has remained to date unable to cover the emerging crimes and topics that have occurred in the community, including but not limited to, computer crimes, which are carried out through networking sites or the Internet; as there is no text that criminalizes, describes or defines its standards, thus the extent for criminalizing and pushing its perpetrators is not clear, which puts the judge in a position to resort to analogy according to the discretionary authority granted to him for the crimes committed and not provided for in the law, so as to give it a legally defined form and capacity.
Recommendation 13:Introduce amendments to the Penal Code relating to crimes, especially the computer crimes.
Honor Killings: Article 562 of the Penal Code states: "A mitigating excuse is given if a man who was surprised to find his spouse or one of his ascendants, descendants or his sister committing adultery or illegal sexual intercourse; leading him to kill or injure one of them unintentionally”; noting that this article has already been amended on 20/02/1999, as was the old text states: "A justifying excuse is given ....”.Despite such amendment, excuses are still found for the perpetrator of this crime against a minor, provided that the minor is one of his ascendants, descendants or his sister.Under this amendment, the justifying excuse, which entirely exempts killer from punishment, is replaced with a mitigating excuse for punishment, but it kept the principle of finding social excuses for the perpetrator of this crime.
Recommendation 14:Repeal Article 562 of the Lebanese Penal Code.
Rape Provisions: Rape was stated in the Penal Code under the title “Crimes against Morality and Public Morals in the Chapter Assault on Honors”. The Article 503 stated: “Anyone who coerces his non-spouse through violence and intimidation to engage in sexual intercourseshall be punished by hard labor for at least five years, and not less than seven years if the victim is under the age of 15”. Furthermore, the Article 504 states: “If a person engages in sexual intercourse witha non-spouse, who cannot resist due to a physical or psychological deficiency or as a result of using any form of deception, will be punished by temporary hard labor”.It is noted that these two articles require a rape to have occurred in order to punish the aggressor; i.e. engaging by coercion in a sexual intercourse with a person who is not his spouse, using violence, threats, deceit or exploitation of weakness.On the other hand, the principle of matching the penalties with the gravity of the criminal act is not implemented in many matters; as the Article 503 punishes the aggressor with hard labor for five years and a fine from one million to five million Lebanese pounds paid to the adult, who is not his spouse who has been forced without her consent by using violence. The Legislator has imposed in Article 504 the same punishment for a person who commits the same criminal act on a disabled person or those who cannot resist, due to a physical disability, or physiological or mental deficiency.
Recommendation 15:Amend the Article 503 of the Lebanese Penal Code on rape; so that it is raises the age of the victim to 18 years old.
Recommendation 16:Criminalize marital rape and impose severe punishment in case of a minor under 18 years old or with a child with mental or physical disabilities.
As for the aggressor who marries the victim, the Article 522 of the Penal Code, which contains the major risks for minors, stipulates the following: “If a valid marriage between the perpetrator of any of the crimes set forth in this chapter and the victim, the prosecution will be stopped and if a verdict was issued in the case, the implementation of the punishment imposed on him will be suspended…”. To date, the Article 522 has not been repealed, which stops prosecution and punishment of the perpetrator, if he marries the victim.
Recommendation 17: Repel the Article 522 of the Lebanese Penal Code that exempts the aggressor from punishment if he married the victim.
The Higher Council for Childhood conducted a legal study comparing the Lebanese legislation with the (CRC) and draft laws were submitted based on the identified gaps, but no progress is made up to date in regards to these law projects.
Recommendation 18:Amend some articles of the Penal Code and add new provisions to them, in terms of raising the age of the juvenile victim to 18 full years; in addition to intensifying thepenalties and fines for crimes against children, and enacting provisions that criminalize the exploitation of minors in pornography.
Recommendation 19: Repeal some provisions of Law No. 550 on 24/07/1996 regarding the adoption of a health record for each newborn baby, and replace them with new provisions, in order to be generalized for all children, whatever their nationality; in addition to imposing penalties on violators.
Recommendation 20: Add new provisions to Article 5 of the Associations Act, to allow the juvenile under the age of 15 to be affiliated to the association, and to become a member of the management body under certain conditions.
Recommendation 21:Amend some provisions of Law No. 220 on 29/5/2000 regarding the rights of people with disabilities and add new provisions to them;in order to place textsregardingchildren with disabilities.
Recommendation 22:Add the new Article 218/1 to the Obligations and Contracts Act, in order to assign "the compulsory guardian" to manage the funds of his children, whether through marriage or adoption at the communities that approve adoptions.
Recommendation 23:Amend some provisions of Law no 382 on 04/11/1994 regarding television and radio broadcasting, in terms of respecting the child’s rights and protecting him.
Recommendation 24:Add a new article to the Legislative Decree No. 104 on 30/06/1977, amended by Law No. 330 on 18/05/1994, containing the amendment of some provisions of the Publication Law on issued on 14/09/1962 in terms of respecting the child’s rights and protecting him.
Recommendation 25:Amend some provisions of Law No. 422 on 06/06/2002 regarding the protection of juvenile in conflict with the law or at-risk, and add new provisions to them, in terms of raising the age of criminal responsibility, expanding the concept of social protection and developing competent bodies.
Recommendation 26:Establish a draft law on the Children Act in Lebanon, which extends the minimum marriage of minors, which is 18 years old, and standardizes the child’s texts scattered in many personal status laws; provided that they are governed by this law based on the principle of the best interest of the child.
Second: National Plan of Action for Children
The HCC announced preparations for a national plan for the advancement of children in Lebanon that will take into account the General Assembly special session document (2002), “A World Fit for Children,” and the Arab Action Plan for Children. However, the national plan never materialised. It was instead replaced by various action plans addressing specific issues relating to street children, child participation, early childhood development, disabilities, child trafficking, and the national strategy for the prevention and protection of children from violence. The adopted process relies on the formulation of the action plans by the HCC and the sharing of those plans in a participatory review process with relevant stakeholders, and then final presentation to the Council of Ministers for approval.7The action plans are at different stages of finalisation. Only the national strategy for the prevention and protection of children from violence was finalised and approved in 2012 by the Council of Ministers. However, this approval is limited to the content of the strategy, and does not include the allocation of required budget resources to the concerned ministries.8
Also, the Ministry of Social Affairs launched in 2013 “the National Programfor Local Socio-Economic Development”, which aims to contribute in implementing the content of the national strategy for social development, and serves to activate and develop the role of the developmental services centers, and works on the development and empowerment of the social development centersto enable marginalized groups, particularly young people, pregnant inmatesin prisons and the displaced Syrians in Lebanon. Also the ministry implements the ‘national plan for the protection of women and children’ since 2014.
Recommendation 27: The Council of Ministers should approve the other national sectoral plans.
Recommendation 28: Monitor the necessary appropriations to implement the sectoral plans so they don't remain ink on paper.
Third: Information Collection
Lebanon lacks demographic data and has not conducted a census since 1932. The last Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) conducted by the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS) dates from 2009, and includes data on children from a governmental formal source. HCC had initiated the implementation of the “Child Info” programme on indicators relating to children, and it planned to establish a research, information, and documentation centre for childhood within the framework of the Programme of Cooperation between the Lebanese Government and UNICEF from 2002 to 2006. However, when Child Info was transformed into Dev Info, it was decided that the Central Administration of Statistics would take the lead. HCC updated the database until 2006. The information and documentation centre was established in 2011 using Italian government funds, but it was transformed into a resource centre that does not include a childhood database with relevant indicators. To date, the mechanisms for data collection and analysis are inadequate. There is a lack of updated and disaggregated data concerning many issues covered by the Convention. There is no set of agreed-upon metrics to ensure that data is collected on all areas covered by the Convention. Whenever indicators are available, they are not used to formulate policies and programmes for the effective implementation of the Convention.9
