Child Labour in Lebanon ...
Can you picture your child doing this ?
The Syrian children stood at the side of the road just after first light, just as they were told.
At this ragged cluster of tents in the Bekaa Valley, they weren't waiting for a school bus in the early morning cold.
An open back truck arrives just after 06:00 to take them to the fields to help bring in the harvest.
Dozens of children dressed in plastic sandals and thin shirts or dresses shiver in the dawn chill. They cling to metal bars as they're thrown back and forth in the truck normally used to transport livestock which ferries them to a nearby farm where courgettes are ripe for picking.
This pint-sized gang of workers swarms into the lush green fields as the Syrian middleman, who organises the labour on this Lebanese farm, shouts at them to get to work.
"My hands hurt," confesses 14-year-old Abdul Aziz as he holds up his grimy hands and points to the prickly stalks. Even in his pain, he manages a shy smile.
In other fields, where children have been harvesting crops such as grapes or potatoes, the work is even more difficult, and dangerous.
Aid officials told me of seeing children cut themselves with knives or run in fear from powerful combine harvesters that churn the soil.
"It's a bad situation," says Tarek Mazloum of the Lebanese charity Beyond as he watches little children struggle with big buckets of fat green courgettes.
"Each family consists of six, seven or eight children and all of them work, from three or four years old," he explains. His charity helps provide for Syrian refugee families.
He shakes his head, visibly upset. "But we can't stop it. If the children don't work, the family would be destroyed. They wouldn't eat."
"It is up to all of us to find a solution," says Unicef's Maria Calivis. "Children should be at school and not at work."
where almost half the population is under poverty line (which the case for me) you would notice in general that kids with tougher childhood are better candidates for success.
And again I admitt, I cannot do it for my kids but this doesn't necessarily means that my over protection is the ideal way of raising kids.
They grow up to be one of 2 things
1-Prostitutes.
2-Crack-heads gangsters.
I, and most of us, cannot volunteerly do it to our kids;
and it's not the case that I enjoy those kids suffering.
I'm just wondering won't these kids grow to be better human beings than our "spoiled" kids.
...so their arab brothers in Lebanaon instead of being hospitable to them are trying to get the maximum benefit out of them and the little kids. God alone knows what else goes on there besides this abuses.
Innocent dreams are so distracted by a group smart arses that these little kids have no positive hope.
Every end of the road reveals God in a new way. It is even possible to find GOD in the dark.
GOD's delays are never GOD's denial.
Child labor and child prostitution go hand-in-hand in Lebanon.
According to a recent NGO survey most boys/girls prostitutes were former child workers who start working at as young as 8 years old, critical period in a child’s life when they are most easily groomed/influenced.
However, what this article doesn’t tell you is that those children in the child trade in Lebanon, are not only Lebanese children, but also Palestinian, Syrian and Jordanian children.
I was intrigued that the article did not mention the farmers who exploit these youngsters....
The people involved in creating this mess should be a shame of themselves.
At this age kids need , love and protection and a chance to enjoy life - Not to labour in the fields .
Feeling sorry for those helpless children...:(
but whom do you think are better raised;
our fluffy kids with JB, Miley or may Kim K as their role model or those tough felows that might be candidates for better human beings?
I'm not saying we have to do this. I'm just wondering; who is setting the standard and this over-protection we are providing our kids, is it really for their good.
our creator give enough food & shelter so that young children don't suffer ....
Exploiters needs to control their inner-beasts ...