The syrian refugee crisis and the humanitarian response in Lebanon: refugee protection and adoption of negative coping mechanisms

• Autor(a) principal: Cardoso, Marta Marinho Dias
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/17603
• topic: Syrian refugees; Lebanon; Humanitarian crisis; Negative coping mechanisms; Refugee protection; Refugiado; Proteção social; Crise; Ajuda humanitária; Política internacional; Líbano; Síria

Starting in 2014, the arrival and impact of Syrian refugees in Europe has been the focus of much attention by national and international media. However, the impact they have had in neighbouring countries is much more significant and notable than in the European continent, namely due to the fact that they are more numerous in the former than in the latter. In early 2011, civil war broke out in Syria giving rise to one of the most violent conflicts currently still underway. Nearly half of the Syrian population has been forcibly displaced, with more than a million persons seeking refuge in neighbouring Lebanon, a country already struggling with entrenched social, political and economic problems of its own. Hence, despite the centralisation of the problem in Europe by mainstream organs, the neighbouring countries are the ones most affected by the crisis, and Lebanon specifically can be seen as the most affected one as 1 in every 4 people living there are refugees. Although not a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, the Lebanese Government initially applied an open-border policy in line with its long historical relationship with Syria, but shifted its approach in late 2014, imposing much more restrictive entry requirements on Syrians fleeing the conflict. The sponsorship system (entailing the payment of high fees) became the only way of legally entering the country, which has led to unbalanced and at times exploitative relations between the refugee and the sponsor. Coupled with the protraction of the war and the depletion of resources, the majority of Syrian households, in particular women-headed households, are unable to renew their residency in Lebanon, further increasing their vulnerability. Consequently, they have been pushed to resort to negative coping strategies, such as engaging children in labour, marrying off daughters or accepting risky jobs. We argue that, due to normative reasons and also because of higher levels of effectiveness, the Government should lift all obstacles impeding refugees from regularising their stay in the country, and the international community must step up its in-kind assistance and resettlement efforts in order to share the burden placed on first-asylum countries.