There is no doubt that prejudice and discrimination against the refugees has forced a mutual aversion between them and the host society and sewed anxiety among the two sides.
From the scenes in the camps in the Bekaa:
• Mona is 15 years old, from the city of Idlib. Her mother got married and left her with her brothers, so they married her off more than once to collect her dowries. Each time, she was obligated to live with a stranger, then divorce him and return to the camp. We raised her case to an association that battles violence against girls, which expressed its willingness to help, but we faced two difficulties. First, obtaining a protection order to enter the camp, and second, the impossibility of her returning to the camp. If her brothers, who are her guardians, accept, the association can only protect and host her for two months.
• Raja is 16 years old, from the city of Aleppo. Her mother used to leave her alone while at work, only to discover that she was using drugs with her friends and having it provided by a young Lebanese boy from the town where she lived. So the mother filed a complaint with the mayor, who arrested the boy and jailed him for a month. Then, she tried to protect her daughter by taking her to work with her or locking her in her room, but it was to no benefit, because Raja was afflicted with addiction. She suffers from bouts of yelling and insanity when her withdrawal grows too strong. We looked into the case and put the mother in touch with an organization that is currently working to treat Raja. However, no one can guarantee that she won’t fall prey again to the wolves when she returns to the town. For that reason, we have put the case under the direction of UNHCR.
• After every security incident in Lebanon, security forces storm the camp at Bar Elias and demand the IDs of the residents. They would arrest anyone who doesn’t possess official papers or expired residence, and they would only be released after interrogations. Wissam, a resident there, says, «It’s terrifying when they storm the camp, even though it’s their right to do so. But what frightens us more is the contemptuous way that they treat us. Once a soldier threw a young man on the ground to search him, so someone screamed in the soldier’s face, ‘We aren’t animals!’».
• One of the camps in West Bekaa suffered a large fire, so we decided to hold a workshop for traumatized children, in the school across the street from the entrance. We arrived in the morning and waited for the sergeant to come with the key. There were around 100 children gathered around us, and a number of them climbed the gates. The supervisor showered them with blows from his cane and turned to us to give us a harangue. Following this incident, the sergeant threw us out, and we moved the workshop to the Bar Elias camp. The sergeant usually treats us with this insolence, and no authorities hold him accountable. He is not answerable to the associations that supervise refugees. We have prepared a complaint about this, with photos appended, for anyone interested in following up.
• One of the municipalities was distributing coupons for diesel oil to refugees in the community, and the announcement asked for girls to come pick them up. A girl steps up to take a coupon from a council member, and he asks her for her number and if she has WhatsApp service and writes her name and phone number. An elderly lady was watching this interaction while waiting for her turn, and when he didn’t call her, she stepped up to him and asked, «Where is my coupon?» He replied, «There is none for you, come back another day». So she stood in the middle of the hall and yelled in her loudest voice, «I don’t have WhatsApp… Is that it?» The policeman then threw her out of the building.
• The sergeant owns the land on which one of the camps in Bar Elias was built, and he charges between 100,000 LL and $100 in rent for each tent. The girls at this camp used to attend school, but after five years of displacement they have become 14 and 15 years old, so the sergeant made them work on his land. Even though he is married to a Syrian woman and has three children, he married a minor after her father was promised an exemption from paying rent. After a year, the sergeant married another minor, so he now had three wives. He is the highest authority in the camp, and he plays favorites among the residents, especially when it comes to distributing aid. Everyone has to get on his right side or else, he showers them with his anger.
• Mohanad is five years old. He goes for the first time to school, and he walks carrying his backpack proudly, like a peacock. He returns home, and the neighbor hears him screaming to the sounds of his mother cursing and hitting him. She intervenes and asks the mother, «Why are you beating him so badly?» She answers, «I’ve been teaching him for two hours and he isn’t memorizing a thing». The neighbor, who is a primary school teacher, looks in Mohanad’s folder and finds that the teacher assigned 13 alphabets for him to memorize in one night! Turning back to the mother, she says, «You are forbidden from hitting him, and he shouldn’t be memorizing these». The neighbor goes to the school principal to explain what that teacher has done, saying it is the teacher who needs education.
• Maryam Diab, from the city of Idlib, was 17 years old Idlib when she gave birth to triplets in a hospital under contract with UNHCR. She died 24 hours post-birth from severe bleeding. There was no investigation. The next day, the hospital gave the father permission to take his children home, while each weighed just one kilogram. After a week, we visited the family and found one of the babies, Khaled, was having difficulty breathing. We consulted with a Syrian pediatrician, who requested to put the triplets into a hospital incubator. Two days later, Khaled died. His brothers returned to the tent after a week, and we assigned a private nurse to them.
Perhaps, when the United Nations acknowledges its dereliction to protect refugees, we can tally its restraint as another virtue in its history, though this will not be clear until we consider the arc of the refugee crisis in its totality. But sometimes, human interactions require an immediate response, and they cannot wait for staid or official reports. Bureaucratic protocols have emptied the humanitarian task of its meaning and undermined the UN as a symbol of our humanity.
Nawal Mdallaly: Lebanese human rights activist
Mohammad Hussein: Syrian journalist and a human rights activist
