UN Authority Figures

UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Board: Lebanon

Increasing numbers of children are having to work to stop their families facing eviction and hunger. More than 80 per cent of the Lebanese and Syrian children who are engaged in child labor are not attending any form of education Photo: Syrian refugees in Lebanon (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
Source: The Telegraph, February 26, 2021

Mission of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF): "UNICEF is mandated by the UN General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and strives to establish children's rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behaviour towards children. UNICEF mobilizes political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a "first call for children" and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families. UNICEF is committed to ensuring special protection for the most disadvantaged children - victims of war, disasters, extreme poverty, all forms of violence and exploitation and those with disabilities. UNICEF responds in emergencies to protect the rights of children. In everything it does, the most disadvantaged children and the countries in greatest need have priority." (UN Children's Fund website, "UNICEF's Mission Statement")

Term of office: 2022-2024

Lebanon's Record on Children:
"Sunni religious courts apply an inheritance law that provides a daughter one-half the inheritance of a son. Religious law on child custody matters favors the father in most instances, regardless of religion... Citizenship is derived exclusively from the father, which may result in statelessness for children of a citizen mother and noncitizen father who may not transmit his own citizenship... The country lacked a comprehensive child protection law, a... the child protection NGO Himaya reported assisting with more than 1,145 cases of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse as well as exploitation and neglect... There is no legal minimum age for marriage, and the government does not perform civil marriage... Each sect has its own religious courts governing matters of personal status, such as marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance. The minimum age of marriage varies from ages 14 to 18, depending on the sect. UN agencies, NGOs, and government officials noted high rates of early marriage among the Syrian refugee population, in some cases four times the rate of child marriage as before the conflict began... The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction."
(U.S. State Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2020, Lebanon)

Archive