Back to Contents an estimated 4,500 Palestine refugee children were engaged in different forms of child labour. (citing In Focus: Child Labour in Lebanon, Interagency Coordination Lebanon, November 2018 ). • Substance abuse and involvement in often violent drug related networks is anecdotally reported as on the rise, in particular for adolescents, youth, and even children, with an increasing number resorting to the distribution or transportation of drugs. Data is limited on this growing phenomenon due to its sensitive nature.” (Source: UNRWA: “Protection brief Palestine refugees living in Lebanon Updated in September 2020”, Updated September 2020, p. 3) 7.3. What are the obstacles to the protection of Stateless Palestinian children? Walaa Kayyal, a researcher living as a Palestinian in Lebanon who was interviewed for this report in October 2022 emphasised the fragility of the funding on which child protection programmes rely in Lebanon: “Most importantly, if you are talking specifically about child protection services, most of these services are covered by international or local NGOs. So again, they’re not structured. For example, now I work at an international NGO that provides child protection case management, and they provide for the case management. They provide emergency cash assistance and these projects are based on funds. So, for example if UNHCR stopped giving us, we will cut the service. We will not give any more child protection services. In brief, no, we don’t have a structure. There are scattered services through the nongovernmental organization scope, but these are based on funds. So, if the fund is cut, the services are cut. We have some initiatives by UNRWA and the Ministry of Public Health, but these are more broadly into mental health rather than child protection.” (Source: Walaa Kayyal, interview record, 31 October 2022) The same source pointed to the causality between the economic crisis in Lebanon and the increase of child labour: “Since the economic crisis, child labour increased because we have a devaluation of the Lebanese Lira, and the father of the family cannot afford to support the whole family. So Lebanese generally, their social status has dropped because of the devaluation of the currency. However, the poorer became the most poorer, and the majority of people now are under the poverty line. So without being able to quote any figure or any study, I can say that child labour has increased in Lebanon in general. This is because people have to eat, parents cannot afford anything anymore, so they send their children to work. Before the economic crisis we saw child labour in Lebanon but it increased. Inside the camps, UNRWA schools are free of charge. So children can enter and just pay something very negligible in order to enter the UNRWA school. But then some families still decide not to send their children to school so that they come and help them with their own work. So sometimes the father is a painter, and instead of getting another person to help him, he takes his child out of school to help him. Mostly, boys are involved in child labour. You see this inside the camp more than you see it outside the camp also because inside the camp it’s a closed community, they don’t have much interaction with the surrounding around them. In this closed community it is very acceptable for a child, even if they are in school, to help their dad with the work during summer, even if he’s 10 years old or 12 years old. The belief is also that the boys helping their fathers during summer will become more masculine. So, this concept of child labour is very acceptable, and it’s encouraged if the child is working with their father and/or mother.” (Source: Walaa Kayyal, interview record, 31 October 2022) UNRWA reported on school dropouts in their Protection Monitoring Report covering the 1st quarter of 2022: “Strained family incomes were said to continue to push families to send children – often boys – to work, sometimes withdrawing them from school to do so. According to focal points, child labour and school dropouts were the most common issues they saw in quarter one, with child labour a particularly prominent concern in the North, and dropouts the most evident in Saida. […] Reports of child marriage persisted as families continued to struggle economically, with Tyre focal points suggesting the practice was increasing in camps there. However, focal points suggested that cultural practices, including parents’ lack of awareness about the negative impact, also contributed to 7. Child protection 74