BEIRUT: Palestinian children in the camps of Lebanon are losing faith in the value of an education, with record numbers leaving school to work. “We are facing a big problem here,” said Ray Virgilio Torres, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Lebanon. “There seems to be a growing number of children in the camps that do not think that a school education will profit them … education holds no promise.
“A Palestinian refugee can hold a master’s degree in medicine, and he still would not find a job.”
Addressing the problems of Palestinian children has always been a key issue for the organization; UNICEF’s very first field office was established in 1948, in Palestine.
Twenty years ago this Friday, the UN adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. To mark the occasion, UNICEF presented the findings of a survey on child labor in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
The results of this most recent survey made it clear that the organization’s work was far from done.
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