Thousands of Palestinian refugees in the 12 Palestinian refugee camps across Lebanon have been protesting since July 15 against a discriminatory labor law announced in early June by the Lebanese government. The law states that all foreign workers will be required to obtain work permits, to work and do business in Lebanon. The law itself is old but the restrictions within the law were not applicable to Palestinians until now, as they were exempted from these restrictions by the Lebanese government in 2010.
Palestinian refugees who are participating in the general strike against the measure have employed actions like blocking the entrances to the Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp, east of the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, while also burning tyres and marching on the streets. The Lebanese army was later deployed to clear the roads and quell the protests.
Protests have also been held in the capital city of Beirut against the move and the subsequent crackdown that took place on businesses that did not have the required permits. The road leading to the Rashidieh refugee camp was also blocked by protesters.
Last week, Lebanese forces had stopped protesters from marching all the way to the parliament building in central Beirut. The protest was organized by the ‘Coalition of Palestinian Refugees Right to Work’ and other institutions and associations operating in Lebanon in protest at “arbitrary measures against Palestinian workers and merchants in Lebanon and their right to live in dignity.”
A massive sit-in demonstration was held in Martyrs Square in the city of Sidon organized by groups such as Jama’a Al-Islamiyya, Hamas, Islamic Forces, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Lebanon and the Palestinian Scholars Association under the banner “Friday of Palestine in Saida”. A large march was also carried out in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, as well as in the Burj El-Barajneh camp in the south of Beirut.
Last month, the Lebanese Ministry of Labor had given companies and workers a one-month extended deadline to obtain the necessary work permits. Upon the expiration of the grace period last week, the government started conducting inspections and closed down establishments that failed to comply with the rules, while also issuing warnings to others.
In response, the Palestinian monitoring committee on Sunday said that the law issued by the Lebanese ministry of labor must be amended on the basis of a new and shared Palestinian-Lebanese vision.
Earlier, Lebanon’s Labor Minister Camille Abou Sleiman told a local TV station that the ministry was simply enforcing the already existing laws that regulate foreign workers in the country. He also said that the ministry is not targeting Palestinians. However, critics and analysts have criticized the Labor Ministry’s move for targeting Palestinian, and even Syrian, refugees.
Abou Sleiman also stated that the ministry will try and facilitate the process of issuing work permits for Palestinians working in Lebanon. He further added that Palestinians will be exempted from enrollment in social security, which is currently a requirement for obtaining a work permit.
Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri and the Hezbollah party have urged the labor minister to leave Palestinian workers out of the crackdown. Palestinian refugees are already barred from working in more than 60 types of civil jobs according to Lebanese law, including law, medicine, teaching, fishing, driving a taxi, engineering, army, and the police. As a result, Palestinians are restricted to jobs in fields such as construction, restaurants and agriculture.
The Lebanese Communist party also issued a statement on its website, with regards to a meeting that was held at the headquarters of the National Union of Trade Unions and users in Lebanon. The union of Palestinian workers, as well as several other trade unions took part in the meeting which was held under the banner “Yes to the social and civil rights of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, the first of which is the right to work.”
A statement by the National Union of Trade Unions said, “The meeting discussed the results of the decision of the minister of labor to consider Palestinian workers as other non-Lebanese workers and the unfair measures that contravene international treaties and laws relating to the Palestinian refugees. The rights of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon must be subject to clear laws and procedures that preserve their civil, social and humanitarian rights until they return to Palestine and build their national state with Jerusalem as its capital. ”
There are close to 475,000 Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations refugee agency in Lebanon, out of which an estimated 270,000 actually live in the country. The Lebanese government, however, says that there are only 175,000 Palestinian refugees in the country, according to data published by Lebanon’s central administration of statistics in 2017 following a one-off government census. Most of these refugees live in the 12 official refugee camps and 156 other Palestinian communities in the five Lebanese governorates.
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon suffer from a very high unemployment rate which, according to a report by the UNRWA in 2019, was 57%. It is considerably higher than the overall Palestinian refugee unemployment rate across all territories of 36%. As a result, most Palestinian refugees and their families are rendered dependent on aid from the UNRWA, as well as aid from other charities and from the Palestine Liberation Organization’s refugee administration.
